INTERNATIONAL REPORT—Scandic has launched a new brand—Scandic Go, offering a playful, slimmer concept within the growing economy hotel segment. With Scandic Go, the company aims to establish a strong presence in city locations in all of the Nordic markets. Scandic will initially launch five hotels under the new Scandic Go brand—four in Stockholm and Oslo during the fourth quarter 2020 and one in Copenhagen during the second quarter 2021.
Scandic Go will aim to offer a great night’s sleep at a great location for a great price, according to the company. Full-service restaurants, meeting facilities and gyms have been removed for city travelers who prefer to experience the wide range of restaurants and entertainment outside of the hotel. Guests that still want to eat in will be able to enjoy a limited, but curated food and beverage offering.
“In bigger cities, we’ve seen changes in the way new and returning guests spend their time both in and outside of the hotels,” said Jens Mathiesen, president/CEO, Scandic Hotels. “Now is the perfect time to expand our offering and establish Scandic in a segment where we see strong potential to grow.”
The economy hotel segment has grown steadily in recent years and is expected to increase further with changes in traveler behavior. Scandic aims to be the market leader in the segment in the Nordic countries, primarily through new-builds and take overs. Today, Scandic has an attractive pipeline that corresponds to annual growth of around 1,500 rooms per year on average. With Scandic G0, the company expects this growth to increase to 2,500-3,000 rooms annually, according to the company.
This new type of configuration opens up opportunities for hotels with more compact rooms and fewer shared spaces compared with the company’s full-service hotels.
“Scandic Go is the ideal complement to our leading Scandic hotel offering. We’ve learned a lot from earlier projects—knowledge that we’re benefiting from as we launch Scandic Go—and I’m convinced this initiative will strengthen our growth potential,” said Mathiesen.
The main focus of Scandic Go is a playful, young and urban design, rooms made for compact living and a stay guided by personal devices. Guests will manage check-in, checkout and access to rooms in the Scandic app, and casting from guests’ personal devices to TV screens will be prioritized rather than offering a wide range of TV channels.
The first five hotels that will be refurbished and launched under the Scandic Go brand are Scandic No.53, Stockholm; Scandic Upplandsgatan, Stockholm; Scandic Karl Johan, Oslo; Scandic Grensen, Oslo; and Scandic Webers, Copenhagen.