89 - Clarifying the Hotel Brand Ecosystem
So the Hotel Brand Pyramid sparked a bunch of debates and disagreements. It is time to remedy that, and I'm welcoming your feedback to make it better. Happy 2025!
Hello,
Happy 2025! During the holidays I posted the Hotel Brand Pyramid, I had seen the chart presented by the CEO of Leonardo hotels to explain how their hotels fit the categories. It turns out this pyramid was actually published by Jestafreak some time ago.
I found it to be a very practical look at how the brands compare, but it is missing plenty of brands and categorization of the ones on the chart are up for discussion.
I’ve been trying to think of a way to collect a more complete list, but it isn’t that easy. So I wanted to solicit the readers to get your input. Below are the main posts on the topic. Your feedback is welcome.
Best, Martin
1. What are hotel “brands”?
Some time ago I wrote a post on LinkedIn about brands, what they are and what is a hotel “brand” compared to a regular consumer brand. Hotel brands don’t behave the same way, especially because they lack consistency over time and in geographical locations. A Marriott in the US created 20 years ago, is very different from a Marriott in Singapore created last year.
2. Clarifying hotel brands in a pyramid
A few weeks ago I published the Hotel Brand pyramid chart which sparked quite a lot of debate online. Between my own post and the post from a Director of F&B at Accor the comments clearly show that there is confusion, and that the pyramid is very incomplete. I believe it is time to make a more complete hotel brand pyramid.
3. So what is missing?
There are two main points that need some clarification. The first is what are the real categories we should use? The following are some: Ultra Luxury, Luxury, Upper Upscale, Upscale, Midscale and Economy, but are they the right ones? I don’t like Upper Upscale as a name, that could be renamed to Premium. The second point is that there are so many regional players. How could a pyramid be more inclusive without being a washing list of single hotels? Where should the cut-off be? A certain number of rooms? A certain number of hotels?
This is where all help would be welcome. Comment on this post with your suggestions for brands that should be included and if possible a link to their website so I can review them and try to calculate their size.
Alternately, comment on the LinkedIn post with your thoughts/brands/input so I can include it in a broader pyramid.
About me: I'm a fractional CMO for large travel technology companies helping turn them into industry leaders. I'm also the co-founder of 10minutes.news a hotel news media that is unsensational, factual and keeps hoteliers updated on the industry.
Salut Martin et bonne annee!
Firstly, you're 1000% right about geography. When I was last in Singapore, I stayed at the Hilton property there and it is far beyond any Hilton-flagged property in North America. Over in the US, it would be flagged a Conrad! That said, I wonder if Singapore is the exception rather than the rule for Southeast Asia.
Given the subjectivity of hotel categorizations, I'm wondering if we might now be able to use that thing called artificial intelligence everyone keeps talking about to help us develop a more objective means of classifying properties besides a 20th-century standards checklist or as an exercise for branding teams.
That is, if we could build a database that incorporated hotel features, room features, nightly rates, geography, brand/service standards, certifications, year of last renovation, TripAdvisor reviews and NLP-driven guest sentiment, what patterns would we find?
To filter my thoughts through my ape-brained bias machine, the five star category system is broken. What is a 4.5-star hotel? When will the first eight-star hotel open in the GCC? Is "laidback luxury" meaningful for everyone or would many 'traditional' guests deem such resorts to be one step removed from a hostel experience?
Bias is everywhere, so let the machines help!
I think this is very strange that you pick up a pyramid from an source which does not seem reliable and use it as a cummunication tool for your company without verifying the facts first or making sure of the accuracy. Most professionals in the field will ask you how you get to the pyramid, what are the basis of the research and the findings here, what were the criteria, how was it evaluated....otherwise this is like a fake news. Thank you to clarify