VIENNA — European hoteliers are focusing on building communities that energize the lifestyle demographic.
The European “lifestyle” is a broad segment that spans a diverse region of around 50 national markets, with a largely fragmented hotel portfolio and a well-developed transport infrastructure that makes even short vacations easy. You can enjoy different languages, food and culture.
Thomas Emmanuel, director of CoStar's hotel analytics division STR, said there were 66 hotel brands in Europe that classified themselves as lifestyle.
“This equates to 956 hotels and 130,000 keys. It's a pretty eclectic mix,” he said during a panel discussion on the sector at the Central and Eastern Europe Hotel Investment Conference, better known as HOTCO. .
The top two brands by number of hotels are Marriott International brands Moxy and Autograph Collection, with six of the top 10 belonging to international hotel brand companies.
Jonathan Lee-Jones, senior vice president of European investments at owner Lifestyle Hospitality Capital, said without the efforts of hoteliers to build relationships with local partners and people, the European lifestyle sector would He said it would have been hit extensively long ago.
“Lifestyle is a design-driven product with multiple revenue streams, but with spaces that bring communities together and create a halo effect on everything else,” he said.
Gabriela Basowska, a consultant at business advisory PKF, said that since the W Hotels brand was founded in 1998, lifestyle hotels have been holding parties to prevent guests from sleeping. I wanted to go back to those days. ” Founded by Starwood Hotels & Resorts, W Hotels is now part of the Marriott stable of brands.
Adrian Schmidt, vice president of digital development and strategy at hotel owner and operator HR Group, says that idea is further amplified in Europe, with the excitement of coming from multiple countries with many cultural differences and stimuli. He said it is promoting increased innovation among hoteliers.
Hotels typically have functional, emotional and social benefits, but lifestyle hotels need to offer more than that, say the founders of Drella, two companies bringing entertainment initiatives to hotels. said Marcel Engh, Managing Director and Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Office of Jazzed.
“The big buzzword right now is community marketing. Ace, The Standard, Hoxton have communities, Moxy doesn't yet have a community. Only community can sustain [lifestyle] “The brand is strong,” he said.
Benjamin Calleja, founder and chief experience officer of food and beverage design firm Rivit Design, said the simple premise is that a lifestyle hotel's offering must be better than its neighbor's.
Eng said both hoteliers and non-hoteliers see an opportunity to use hotels as a conduit for entertainment initiatives.
“Artists used to have premieres. [musical] Hotel materials. Now we can stream it to paying viewers,” he said.
Calleja added that it would be interesting to see non-hotel brands enter the space either as partners or by launching their own hotel brands.
Success in the lifestyle hotel sector depends on hoteliers having clear goals and strategies to achieve the required revenue per available room and driving community-driven experiences at every touchpoint within the hotel. said Mr. Eng.
“Consistency is key, and I feel some brands are missing out on that,” he says.
But Calleja says it's a mistake not to always pay attention to the little, unexpected details that resonate most with guests.
“It used to be easier to understand who the guests and locals were. Successful hotels often have a community manager, and that's an important role that helps fill the hotel.” he said.
Community management provides data and, more importantly, “a lot of non-hotel-specific data that can help you understand your customers better,” Schmidt says.
Many aspects of lifestyle still make sense for investors, especially customer diversification and the potential for hotels to further increase their ability to keep guests on-property, engage them, and increase spending. Lee Jones said it was expensive.
For Basowska, Hyatt Hotels Corp.'s Thompson Hotels brand is “the epitome of a lifestyle, but I think the way we deliver that is not so obvious. It's not very prescriptive.”
She said this approach to lifestyle will play a big role in Europe.
According to HOTCO's analysis, the UK, Germany, Spain and France lead the way in terms of the number of lifestyle hotels, Emmanuel said. He added that this segment has legs.
“Before 2000, there were only six lifestyle brands in Europe. …Currently, Accor has 11 rooms and 7,000 Moxy rooms in the European pipeline,” he said. .
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