STAMFORD, CT—Since Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide created a dedicated group for its three mid-market specialty select brands four years ago, each of the brands has thrived under the arrangement. Aloft is known for its W-like buzz and Element for its cutting-edge, eco-friendly profile. But Four Points by Sheraton has really done more than its share of the heavy lifting.
Witness the numbers: The company’s specialty select brand group is expected to open its 250th hotel in the next few months around the world, certainly a development milestone. Yet also in 2013, Four Points by Sheraton alone is scheduled to open its 175th property internationally.
Granted, Four Points was already an established brand in 2009, when Starwood created the mid-market brands group, while Aloft and Element were brand-new brand entrants. But Four Points hasn’t had the benefit of any of the special positioning enjoyed by both of its younger siblings.
Brian McGuinness, the company’s SVP for specialty select brands, likened Four Points’ outsize success to “riding a swell of global growth.” The brand has Starwood’s second largest pipeline—and the company’s second largest development pipeline in China, which is currently one of the world’s hottest growth markets industry-wide. Four Points already has 16 hotels in China with another five poised to open by the end of 2013, primarily in fast-growing secondary and tertiary markets.
By year-end, McGuinness and his team expect Four Points to have a presence in 32 countries and territories, up from 28 at the end of 2011.
Describing the brand’s goals for 2013 in December, McGuinness mentioned a new brand initiative called “Check Point,” a lobby concept “relative to really modernizing the check-in and check-out process; providing increased bandwidth on a complimentary basis in public spaces as well as throughout the entire hotel in response to increased consumer use of the Internet; and a relaunch of the brand’s
Best Brews program, which focuses on local craft beers.”
Looking beyond the 175th property milestone, McGuinness already has the 200-property mark for Four Points in his sights. “It’s a totally reasonable goal. We’ll continue to see conversions growth in the U.S. and in The Americas in general. Brazil is a huge opportunity for us, though not necessarily in 2013 from an opening perspective. Certainly, Asia-Pacific will continue to see a significant number of openings of new-builds in 2013, particularly in China,” he reported.
Three development deals unveiled in the fourth quarter of 2012—in Berlin, Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, and Edmundston, New Brunswick in Canada—demonstrate the breadth of Four Points’ increasingly powerful global reach. Airport locations are always on Starwood’s specialty-select brands’ wish list, McGuinness noted, “because of their high visibility,” and the 253-room Four Points by Sheraton Berlin Airport, scheduled to open next year, should fit the bill. It will be the brand’s third flag in Germany. Four Points’ moderate price for consumers was cited as part of its appeal by the CEO of the hotel’s developer E&O Hotels.
McGuinness and his team said that the brand would continue to expand in the Dominican Republic, specifically, Punta Cana. The 124-room Four Points by Sheraton Puntacana Village will be part of a larger project being developed by Grupo Puntacana that will include a second Starwood hotel, the Westin Puntacana Resort, which is expected to open in late 2013. Like his counterpart at E&O Hotels, Alberto Abreu, Grupo Puntacana executive director of hospitality, praised the choice of Four Points for its “affordability” as well as its style and comfort.
Conversions remain a key driver in Four Points’ growth strategy, McGuinness pointed out. Unlike the Berlin and Dominican Republic projects, the Four Points, scheduled to open this summer in New Brunswick, will be a reflagging of a former Clarion hotel. The 102-room Four Points by Sheraton Edmundston will undergo a $2.5-million renovation.
The hotel will also have more of a group orientation than the properties in Berlin and the Dominican Republic, as it is located adjacent to the Edmundston Convention Centre with its 14,000 sq. ft. of meeting and event space. It will be the city’s first Four Points.
Going forward, a brand like Four Points is likely to be entering more and more emerging markets around the world. “It’s a high-quality product, even though it may be at an affordable price point. There may not be a tradition of select-service hotels in many of these markets, even though there may be a tradition of luxury lodging and even a tradition of economy lodging,” McGuinness explained.
As a result, brands like Four Points are defining the select-service tier. “It affects which brands we recommend where, when we’re working with developers, and whether the recommendation is for full-service or select-service. We’re looking to see what the demand generators are in the market and what the customer profile looks like,” he continued.
Since it was established, Four Points has had the advantage of having Sheraton as part of its name. In many emerging markets like Africa, Sheraton has served as “a mover brand,” meaning it would enter a market first and help establish the Starwood name. Then other company brands, including Four Points, would follow.
Three Four Points, in fact, are scheduled to open in Africa—two in Nigeria and one in Algeria—in the next few years, Sheraton having long been established there .
“It’s a specific strategy driven by the fact that Sheraton is such a well-known brand around the world. It has a huge presence. With that consumer knowledge behind it, it has certainly made sense for Sheraton to take the lead,” McGuinness concluded.