Upscale Chains Respond To Midprice Chain Offerings
<B>Upscale Chains Respond To Midprice Chain Offerings</B>
By Bruce Serlen
Call it a defensive strategy or call it simply playing to their traditional strength: Upscale, full service chains, aware of the tremendous growth of the midprice, limited service brands in the past year, have responded by introducing major enhancements to their bed and room designs and food and beverage offerings.
The most recent response came this month when Marriott International launched its Marriott Bed program, featuring an upgraded bedding product, at its flagship Marriott Hotels, Resorts & Suites. This follows Hyatt Hotel Corp.'s overhaul last month of its food and beverage program. Hyatt's focus is on an area it believes business travelers have a special interest in because of the frequency of their travel: alternative cuisine that stresses eating nutritionally on the road.
The Marriott and Hyatt initiatives came a few months after the introduction at Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, a unit of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, of an entirely revamped guest room design that stresses comfort and flexibility (BTN, July 10). Competition has fueled all of these enhancements.
The growth in the marketplace of the midprice, limited service brands has been evident in both the number of properties and geographic penetration into all regions of the country. In many cases, this growth has reached the point where they are becoming truly national brands that rival their more established full service counterparts in visibility and name recognition.
This is especially ironic in the case of both Marriott and Starwood because a number of these limited service brands are part of their own multibrand portfolios. In fact, these companies' full service hotels could find themselves losing market share in both the business and leisure segments to limited service brands bearing their own names as a sub-brand. Courtyard by Marriott, Fairfield Inn by Marriott and Four Points by Sheraton are three examples.
The upgraded bed product at Marriott is an effort to create an experience for business travelers that's closer to what they experience at home. "It's one more part of our effort to make the hotel room as residential as possible," said Julie Moll, brand vice president for Marriott Hotels, Resorts & Suites. "When we did our consumer research, the feedback we got from business travelers and other guests was that they were upgrading their beds and linen at home and were looking for similar improvements when they traveled. In fact, they said their home environments weren't at all institutional in feel and they wanted this sensibility reflected in their hotel rooms."
On a deeper level, the data revealed that frequent business travelers, in particular, often felt they were on the road more than they preferred and were looking for more touches of home in the hotel room to help them compensate. "Those business people who travel for their jobs seem to be traveling more than ever before. Productivity is on the rise and these travelers reported a sense of their 'lives being stolen,' " Moll said. "We then asked ourselves what we could do in designing a hotel room--the bed in particular--that would help counteract this negative attitude."
Specifically, the new Marriott bed features a seven-inch mattress with quilting on the top and sides. It comes with a down comforter with duvet cover, lightweight, down blanket and down, hypoallergenic pillows. "In terms of comfort and appeal, it's an acknowledgment of sorts that the quality of the bed--and, consequently, a good night's sleep--are central to the traveler's experience of staying in a hotel," Moll said.
In implementing a new bed product, Marriott faces inevitable comparison to the Heavenly Bed promotion that has been so successful for Westin Hotels & Resorts, another Starwood brand. "Our guest feedback told us travelers prefer color in their bedding, which is what we've incorporated, rather than the all-white product of some of our competitors," Moll said.
As is typical with new brandwide standards, Marriott will roll out the new bed gradually. "All new hotels and projects presently in the pipeline will get the new product from the start," she said. "By contrast, existing hotels will adopt the new standard as they replace their existing bed package." At this rate, Moll expects 75 percent of properties to have the new product in place by 2003. Existing properties with the new bed already installed include Marriotts in Philadelphia, at Metro Center in Washington, D.C., and in Dallas at Las Colinas.
In launching its new healthy cuisine food and beverage program last month, Hyatt acknowledged that many business travelers who stay at upscale hotels remain frustrated with the traditional meat-and-potatoes approach to hotel food. In fact, Hyatt's Cuisine Naturelle program already existed, but in a much more modest format. By increasing the menu options in the program by 30 percent to 40 percent and making it available at all U.S. and Canadian properties, Hyatt is saying an alternative, healthy menu is an important option for many of its core travelers. The selections are available in hotel restaurants and through room service.
Frequent travelers have been forced to become more vigilant food-wise and will respond positively to hotels that provide what they're looking for, according to George Vizer, Hyatt's vice president for food and beverage. "No longer are travelers simply trying to avoid 'bad' food or meals high in fat when on business trips. Rather, they're focusing on eating foods that benefit their overall health and well-being."
As with the Marriott bed, the parallel is to what business travelers do in their private lives. "People who pay close attention to what they eat at home are now better able to maintain healthy eating habits while on the road," Vizer said.
In developing its new room prototype, Sheraton relied on feedback from frequent guests, as did Marriott--and received basically the same message loud and clear. "Because so many Sheraton business travelers spend so much time on the road, they told us they were looking for hotels to have the same quality furnishings they would have in their own homes," said Richard Martini, senior vice president of design and construction for Starwood. "That, coupled with our research on what products are being requested in the retail market, led to the evolution of the new room, which was designed for both rest and work."
Giving travelers the same quality furnishings they have at home meant upgrading to "real wood finishes--without plastic laminate tops, velvet drapes and inviting, ergonomic seating, instead of uncomfortable foam chairs," he said.
Sheraton's answer to the Marriott bed, no less the Westin Heavenly bed, was a sleigh model with a pillow-top mattress and pinstripe sheets. The bathroom got a makeover, as did the imposing wooden armoire in the bedroom, which had become almost a standard feature in upscale hotel rooms. "The plate glass mirror has been replaced with a higher-quality example," Martini said. "Vanity tops are now granite and the overall lighting has been improved, which was a request we heard regularly from women travelers." In place of the armoire, the television it contained now is visible and can be turned, allowing guests the flexibility of being able to watch from anywhere in the room.
The Sheraton Boston was the first in the system to undergo the renovation. The cost of the refurbishment program overall is an estimated $350 million. Sheraton plans to redo all of its hotels by the end of 2002.