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!
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?
Brilliant commentary. More questions than answers here :-)
I think for the sake of a visual represenation we'll need to set some boundaries. The future of asking AI "Find me hotels I will appreciate for a family trip in Rome" isn't too far away. But that wont help me make a better pyramid. Any thoughts on lists of hotels I should look at? I'm only looking for consumer level brands. Not owners, or managers etc.
Thanks Martin! I don't know of any macro lists that compare all brands from a consumer perspective.
Indeed this is one reason why the hotel pyramid is so important as a thought exercise right now -- there really isn't a comprehensive list that ranks the brands across different geographies, categories and psychographics. And my hunch is that if we hotel industry insiders are confused about the classifications, then you can bet customers are as well, compelling the need for aggregators like the travel advisors, OTAs, metasearch and soon genAI travel agents.
Of course there are many lists that rank by geography or by category within a given market -- eg. "Best boutique hotels in [city]". There are also lists that rank brands within a given family of brands -- eg "Marriott brands ranked worst to best" -- but these are highly subjective because they often rely on single reviewers' knowledge / experience with the brand(s). Hence why rating authorities like Forbes, CN, T&L and now Michelin have such prowess...and even then these systems typically stick to their luxury knitting.
It's a complex problem because the hotel industry is so fragmented across brands, countries, ownership, facilities/amenities, management etc.
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
I'm not sure I would call the founder and CEO of a 200+ hotel group as an unreliable source. Also as I have said from the beginning, it isn't a complete chart. This article is exactly about gathering more data to make it more complete. I'd love to know actual hotels and brands I should add. I see there are no Minor hotels, definitely a brand that should be added. Which other ones have you noticed? Especially smaller independent groups would be interesting.
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!
Brilliant commentary. More questions than answers here :-)
I think for the sake of a visual represenation we'll need to set some boundaries. The future of asking AI "Find me hotels I will appreciate for a family trip in Rome" isn't too far away. But that wont help me make a better pyramid. Any thoughts on lists of hotels I should look at? I'm only looking for consumer level brands. Not owners, or managers etc.
Thanks Martin! I don't know of any macro lists that compare all brands from a consumer perspective.
Indeed this is one reason why the hotel pyramid is so important as a thought exercise right now -- there really isn't a comprehensive list that ranks the brands across different geographies, categories and psychographics. And my hunch is that if we hotel industry insiders are confused about the classifications, then you can bet customers are as well, compelling the need for aggregators like the travel advisors, OTAs, metasearch and soon genAI travel agents.
Of course there are many lists that rank by geography or by category within a given market -- eg. "Best boutique hotels in [city]". There are also lists that rank brands within a given family of brands -- eg "Marriott brands ranked worst to best" -- but these are highly subjective because they often rely on single reviewers' knowledge / experience with the brand(s). Hence why rating authorities like Forbes, CN, T&L and now Michelin have such prowess...and even then these systems typically stick to their luxury knitting.
It's a complex problem because the hotel industry is so fragmented across brands, countries, ownership, facilities/amenities, management etc.
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
I'm not sure I would call the founder and CEO of a 200+ hotel group as an unreliable source. Also as I have said from the beginning, it isn't a complete chart. This article is exactly about gathering more data to make it more complete. I'd love to know actual hotels and brands I should add. I see there are no Minor hotels, definitely a brand that should be added. Which other ones have you noticed? Especially smaller independent groups would be interesting.