Buyers once again rated relative newcomer Hyatt Place as the
best of its tier in the 2013 Hotel Chain Survey, while in the upper midprice
and midprice tier two Wyndham brands earned their first top finishes.
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Despite facing a more competitive tier—this year's upscale
tier combines brands that last year were divided into upscale and
select-service tiers—Hyatt Place emerged as the top upscale brand, repeating
its performance as top select-service brand in 2012. It improved its overall
score by more than three-tenths of a point and earned the top rating in all but
one criterion. Buyers rated brands' attributes on an ascending scale from one
to six.
The spoiler in Hyatt Place's clean sweep was Carlson's
Radisson brand, which earned top marks for its meeting facilities. Radisson
also improved its score by almost a half a point, more than any other brand in
the tier. Javier Rosenberg, Carlson Rezidor's executive vice president of owned
and managed hotels in the Americas and COO of Radisson in the Americas,
attributed the increase to the brand's aggressive overhaul strategy. During the
past several years, Radisson has removed a number of below-standard brands and
will have completed renovations at 75 percent of its portfolio by the end of
this year, he said.
"We're continuously pushing up our standards, and we
see the effects and positive results," Rosenberg said, adding that
Radisson was the most improved upscale brand in J.D. Power and Associates'
North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study this year.
Hilton Garden Inn earned the second-highest score in the
tier, as it did last year. Global head for the brand Adrian Kurre cited as
reasons for its continued strong performance ongoing lobby renovations to make
them more of a connecting area rather than the "light, bright and airy"
design that had previously dominated the brand. About 300 of the brand's 500
North American hotels will complete those renovations by the end of this year,
he said.
The brand also improved its breakfast service and, within
the past few weeks, introduced an in-room coffee program with plans to include
Keurig coffee makers in all rooms, he said.
Last year's top upscale brand, Hilton's Embassy Suites, fell
to seventh place in the merged tier. Like all other brands in both the upscale
and midprice tiers, however, its scores were up year over year.
Performance-wise, the upscale tier currently is one of the
strongest in the United States, according to Smith Travel Research. The firm
projects upscale average daily rate will increase by 4.4 percent year over year
in 2013 and by an additional 4.6 percent in 2014, a higher increase than every
other tier except luxury. STR projects U.S. upscale occupancy will increase by
1.1 percent this year and by 2.7 percent in 2014, an increase on par with the
luxury tier.
Many of the upscale brands also are aiming to increase their
footprints outside of the United States. Hilton Garden Inn, for example, has
almost 20 countries on its radar, including China, Colombia, Argentina, Turkey
and Qatar, Kurre said. China in particular required several years of tweaking
the brand's design and offerings so that it fit the market but was still
recognizable, he said.
Wyndham Brands Lead
Midprice Tiers
The top rating in both the upper midprice and midprice tiers
went to brands in the Wyndham Worldwide family that both were absent from the
survey last year.
Wyndham Garden, a suburban sub-brand of the upper upscale
Wyndham brand, earned the top overall score in the upper midprice tier and also
got top marks for arranging group travel, meetings facilities, its staff,
business center, in-room business amenities and in-room amenities. This is the
brand's first appearance in the Hotel Chain Survey since 1997. Jeff Wagoner,
president of Wyndham Hotel Group Management, said Wyndham Garden benefits from
leveraging full-service offerings of the parent Wyndham brand.
"You know that in a Wyndham Garden hotel, there's going
to be room service and there's going to be food and beverage available," Wagoner
said. "A lot of select-service properties don't necessarily have
consistent products in that area."
Marriott International's Fairfield Inn & Suites earned
the second-highest score in the tier, its best showing in the chain survey in
nearly a decade. Fairfield showed a marked improvement of more than six-tenths
of a point compared with its 2012 score, the third-highest increase of any
brand in the entire survey. It also was the top brand for its sales staff,
consistency, data quality, physical appearance and price/value relationship.
Originally launched as an economy brand 26 years ago,
Fairfield's more recent pivot to the midprice tier appears to be hitting its
stride. This month, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which rates
hotels and other products and services based on interviews with about 70,000
customers across a variety of industries, reported that Fairfield had the
highest satisfaction score of the 24 hotel brands it rated, including several
upper upscale and luxury brands.
"We're excited about the momentum and potential this
brand has, and I suspect we're going to see a lot of movement," Fairfield
vice president and global brand manager Shruti Buckley said. "Fairfield is
sort of a sleeping brand that has an opportunity to be bigger."
Recent brand enhancements have included adding hot
breakfast, redesigning lobbies to include more shared space, upgrading fitness
areas and creating flexible work spaces, Buckley said. Fairfield also
redesigned its suite rooms, which account for between a quarter and a third of
new-build properties, she said.
Last year's top-rated midprice brand, Hilton's Hampton Inn,
ranked third in the upper midprice tier this year, closely followed by Carlson's
Country Inns & Suites brand, which garnered the top score for its corporate
rate programs.
"In the past 18 months or so, we really focused on
making it easier for organizations to book business in corporate rate programs,"
said Scott Meyer, Carlson Rezidor senior vice president of midscale brands in
the Americas. "We completely redesigned and relaunched our program, based
on a study with corporate travel buyers and their key performance indicators,
to have a tiered program."
Rated at the bottom of the midprice tier last year, Country
Inns & Suites improved its overall score by almost a full point, a bigger
improvement than any other brand in the survey. Meyer said the brand should see
an uptick in scores as a new design, announced earlier this year, begins to
appear. The design, which will be in both new and renovated hotels, includes a
revamped exterior, such public spaces as a den with a workspace area and a
living-room style lobby and reception area, new furnishings and upscale-style
bathrooms.
In the midprice tier, Wyndham's Wingate brand, which last
appeared on the survey in 2011, earned the highest score overall and the top
score for its sales staff, consistency, hotel staff, physical appearance,
in-room amenities, in-room business amenities and price/value relationship.
Brand senior vice president Bill Hall said those areas were the brand's
strengths, as it was designed prior to its 1996 launch with the business
traveler in mind.
"With consistency, we're very prototypical but with
enough flexibility that you can see one in Manhattan and one in Bozeman, Mont.,"
Hall said. "On the business side, we've evolved as the business travelers
have evolved. We were one of the first brands out there to be wired and
wireless in all public spaces, and we had foresight in managing the bandwidth."?As
with many of its competitors, Wingate also is working with a new prototype
featuring an opened up business center, bigger bathrooms and a new in-room
workspace, he added.
Several other brands also stood out in the midprice tier.
Choice Hotels International's Quality brand earned the second-highest overall
score and also was top in arranging group travel and meetings facilities.
Wyndham's Ramada brand tied Quality's top score in meetings facilities and
Wingate's top score for its staff. Best Western tied Quality's top score in
arranging group travel, scored highest for its corporate rate programs and data
quality and also improved its score from last year more than any other brand in
the tier.
Best Western senior vice president of marketing and sales
Dorothy Dowling said the brand has improved its performance among corporate
travel buyers in part through the descriptor program it launched in 2010—which
separates hotels into the higher-tier Best Western Plus and Premier as well as
the standard midprice Best Western product, among other reasons.
"We've had some improvements in technology that we've
invested in and improvements in some of the product," Dowling said. "With
meetings, we've built up capabilities with the worldwide sales team, so when a
customer needs a location, we can quickly secure a bid from a hotel on that
piece of business for them."
This report
originally appeared in the Oct. 14, 2013, edition of Business Travel News.