BEVERLY HILLS, CA— Embassy Suites Hotels is testing the resort waters in an effort to shake its image of being a pure business hotel during the week and a family vacation spot on the weekends. In so doing, the upscale hotel chain, which had 175 properties at presstime, is considering loosening some of its brand standards to make Embassy Suites more attractive to developers looking to build creative properties who still want a strong affiliation with a brand. As witness to this diversity, of the five Embassy Suites opened last year, one was an airport hotel, one was a traditional business hotel, one was a golf resort, one geared toward families and the final was a leisure and business property, David Greydanus, senior vp/Hilton Hotels and Embassy Suites brand manager told HOTEL BUSINESS®. “Traditionally people have thought of Embassy Suites as a business hotel that works well on weekends for leisure travelers,” Greydanus said. “But these hotels really work well in a lot of different settings. The product suite has a lot of appeal and flexibility that works for leisure customers taking the family on a short or extended trip, works for business customer that has a relocation or a training call, and works in a resort environment,” he said. Currently, Embassy Suites breaks its development prototypes into two tiers. The first tier is geared toward properties with between 250 and 350 suites. The second tier is for those with between 150 and 225 suites, according to Greydanus. However, as a result of positioning Embassy Suites to a wider audience of developer and travelers, the brand is currently evaluating adding a third tier this year to its prototypes, one that allows more flexibility regarding certain brand standards, he said. “Our two prototypes work well for our developers. But some of the developers want to build in more unusual locations. So we have been flexible in diverging from our prototypes as long as they maintain the core values of Embassy Suites,” Greydanus said. The creation of third tier prototype would incorporate even more flexibility in terms of the “architectural paradigm,” he said, adding, however regarding “suite accommodations and size.” Where the brand is looking to be lenient, for example, is in its atrium arrangements, Greydanus said. “We are looking at alternative atrium development, which gives more flexibility to developers,” he said. Through its atrium design, Embassy Suites creates an environment known for its space, lighting, landscaping and water themes, which the brand wants to continue to maintain, Greydanus said. “But we will allow a little more architectural freedom,” he said, adding that, for example, if a developer is looking at a property on the beach, the current atrium design should not get in the way of having all the guest suites face the water. To this end, Embassy Suites currently has 28 new projects in the pipeline scheduled to open during then next three years, according to Greydanus. These are in all different kinds of markets with a mix of targeted customers, he said. “We are looking to be in all kinds of markets: downtown markets, convention markets, some resort destinations and suburban markets,” Greydanus said. “In a traditional sense, we don’t have full blown resorts with all the resort amenities. But we have a lot of hotels in resort environments where we provide accommodations and resort-like amenities.” For instance, Embassy Suites has hotels in vacation type environments such as: Dorado Del Mar Beach, Puerto Rico; Deerfield Beach, FL; Myrtle Beach, SC; Mandalay Beach, CA; and Destin Beach, Fl; Phoenix, AZ; to name a few. Embassy Suites is developing another golf and tennis resort and spa in La Quinta, CA. On the mainly leisure destination front, most significantly perhaps, was the opening of the Embassy Suites Hotel Niagara Falls-Fallsview in Ontario, Canada. With 512 suites, the property marked the largest Embassy Suites opened to date and is primarily geared
