LAS VEGAS—At last year’s Country Inns & Suites Business Conference in Miami, the brand unveiled plans for its new Generation 4 prototype. This year, the Conference focused on brand initiatives to support that development.
Located at the Red Rock Resort here, the theme for the conference was “Mindful. Genuine. Welcoming.” Scott Meyer, SVP, midscale brands, Americas, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, noted that those three words are the way by which the brand delivers “caring, consistent and comfortable service.” According to Meyer, the company “has been on a journey the past couple of years to transform the brand and the service that we provide.” This journey includes both the Be Our Guest Breakfast program and the unveiling of the new brand identity and prototype. “Now, our journey leads us to our service culture, a culture that has been our DNA for over 25 years, a culture that is the cornerstone of our brand experience,” said Meyer, noting that while there are plenty of challenges a hotelier can’t control, service is not one of them. “It starts with the brand’s persona of mindful, genuine and welcoming.”
Echoing a strategy stressed at the recent Radisson and Radisson Blu Business Conference last month, David Berg, chief operating officer, Carlson, noted that this service culture, and the ability to drive profitability, will be aided by Vision 20/20, an evolution of Carlson’s Ambition 2015 platform. According to Berg, the hotel company achieved system-wide revenues of $7.5 billion in 2013 and 100 new hotels were signed last year, including 15 Park Plaza hotels in India, China and Europe. “We’ve put down a strong foundation with Ambition 2015. Now with that foundation in place, we’re setting our sights on the future with a clear view of what is needed for success,” said Berg. “At the heart of this new Carlson Rezidor strategy is the guest.”
Berg pointed to a recent Cornell study that showed the most important fact for hotel guests in selecting a hotel is experience, not price. “If we can increase our Trip Advisor scores just by a single point, you have a 14% greater chance that the customer is going to book with your hotel,” he said.
Elements of Vision 20/20 include delivering great results; developing talent; being a bright spot for guests; and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation. “Most great ideas come from the front lines, from the people who are closest to our guests. We need to listen to those folks,” stressed Berg. “There’s never been a better time for us to innovate in the hotel space.”
Thorsten Kirschke, president of the group’s Asia-Pacific region, who led the group as president of the Americas for the past four years, touted great success in 2013 for Country Inns & Suites in particular, noting that the first Generation 4, ground-up build Country Inn & Suites opened in Springfield, IL. In 2013, 4,200 rooms were opened, 5,400 rooms were signed and there are 6,400 rooms in the pipeline in the Americas. “That’s a reflection of the strength of the brand,” said Kirschke. “The years to come look even more promising.” Kirschke noted that existing hotels are also working toward improvement. “More than 75 hotels in North America are renovating toward Gen 4,” he said, adding that 150 more hotels are receiving PIPs along those same lines. “That’s 50% of the entire brand,” he added.
To support the new prototype, which is targeted at both the brand’s existing guest and new potential guests in Millennials, Country Inns & Suites is rolling out a number of new brand awareness initiatives. One, which is targeted at both groups, but specifically male Millennials, is a three-year sponsorship agreement with Top Ten World Ranked PGA Tour golfer, Zach Johnson. Johnson has won 11 PGA Tour events including the 2007 Masters. He has also played on three Ryder Cup and three Presidents Cup teams. The sponsorship will feature logo placement on Johnson’s apparel and kicked off at the Masters in Augusta, GA, earlier this month.
According to Meyer, the sponsorship is the result of a careful and considered process. “How are we going to get the brand name out there in different ways than we’re already doing to complement all of the other brand awareness initiatives that we have? That was the starting point,” he said. “We have to get to a partnership with someone who is going to help us target not only our existing customers but also, specifically, male Millennials,” he said, noting that both male Millennials and Baby Boomers index very high with PGA. According to Meyer, there are more than 30 million golfers and 100 million golf fans, and PGA Tour fans are more likely to take domestic trips annually. “You start putting all of that information into a grid and you see where are the opportunities. Zach started raising to the top—he’s a very successful golfer, with high visibility on TV and with impressions,” said Meyer, noting that Country Inns was also looking for a player who is choosy when it comes to logos and sponsorship brands. “We didn’t want to partner with someone where we’d be the 18th logo on their shirts or hats,” he said.
Similar values were also important to the brand. Country Inns & Suites has made a commitment to Johnson’s charity, the Zach Johnson Foundation and its Kids on Course program, which supports literacy and educational development. Meyer noted that this perfectly aligns with Country Inns & Suites’ values, referencing the brand’s Read It & Return Lending Library, which allows guests to pick out books in the hotel lobby’s library and return it at any Country Inns & Suites property.
“He’s got a great charity in his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a strong family man, so it just ended up being a partnership that was going to click and give us that exposure both on network TV, the Golf Channel and online,” said Meyer. “All of that is impressions. It’s going to be a great, great partnership.”
In addition to increasing brand awareness through live sporting events on network TV, the company has also expanded and targeted other opportunities, including a new initiative with Pandora. A music app with 150 million listeners, primarily Millennials, users can either pay for a subscription or use it for free, with paid advertisements sprinkled in between songs. “Pandora knows what people like and dislike,” said Meyer. “And through the analytics they have, they’re able to provide music based on that. Now you take that a step further and you can now target advertising and brand awareness to people who fit the profile that could become a great, new, loyal, long-term guest of Country Inns & Suites. It’s really that marriage of Pandora, how they understand and gather data, to whom we know we want to get our messaging to. A new audience, but a new audience that we know our brand fits with their lifestyle.”
This type of targeted approach was evident throughout the conference. “This is a place where our size is an advantage,” said Berg. “We should be faster, nimbler, much more attentive to our guests than our competition.” Kirschke noted that investing in technology is a “must.” Added Berg, “There are certainly a lot of things out there that have garnered a lot of attention—mobile check in, crowdsourcing websites, workspace on demand, room access via mobile, and a host of ideas that connect via guest’s mobile devices.” He added that some of these ideas are important, while others are less so and the company will take a considered approach to implementation of new ideas. “They’re not breakthroughs and they don’t think about the guest experience in totality. That’s how we’re trying to think about it and we’re trying to leap ahead of the competition on that front,” he said.