NEW YORK—When development executives at the multi-brand hotel companies plan their strategies for growing distribution, they partner with developers and franchisees to try to have all their brands represented in a given market. Especially when the market is as vibrant and deep a hotel market as New York, having the full roster of its brands covered gives a hotel company a leg up on the competition. In addition to heightened consumer awareness, there are numerous cross-marketing possibilities and operational synergies a hotel company can benefit from.
According to Simon Turner, president of global development for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, if for no other reason, it’s an opportunity for a company to reinforce the rationale behind the whole concept of brand differentiation: a different brand for each type of trip and budget, whether business or leisure, short or extended-stay, transient or group.
Starwood found itself in an enviable position this summer. For the first time, all nine of its brands were represented in New York, the number one market in the country in terms of ADR and RevPAR growth. New York became the first and only city in the world where Starwood could claim this distinction. Starwood, furthermore, recently unveiled plans to have a total of 25 of its hotels open in the city’s five boroughs by 2014.
In making the nine-brand announcement, Turner cited two factors that played in Starwood’s favor with owners and developers: the “diversity of the company’s range of brands” and the “collective strength of the Starwood system,” including its presence on the Web, sales organization, reservations capability and frequent guest program.
By contrast, Marriott could make the all-brand claim, short of its mid-price extended-stay TownePlace Suites brand and its new Edition lifestyle brand, co-developed with veteran boutique developer Ian Schrager, who knows the New York market better than most. But in all fairness, Edition has only one hotel open and that’s in Istanbul.
IHG comes close, but lacks an InterContinental Alliance Resort, and Hilton Worldwide, meanwhile, lacks its pair of extended-stay brands, Homewood Suites by Hilton and Home2Suites, as well as an Embassy Suites. There’s also been no Conrad, one of Hilton’s luxury brands, in the city, but that will be remedied later this year. (See story p. 12B)
Broad presence
As of this spring, eight of the nine Starwood brands were represented across the city, well represented in some cases. W Hotels & Resorts, for example, has four hotels in Manhattan, the most recent being the W New York Downtown Hotel & Residences, a mixed-use project that opened in the Financial District last year.
Similarly, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, the company’s largest brand, has five hotels in the city, headed by the flagship, 1,080-room Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers on Seventh Ave. & 53rd St. New to Sheraton’s New York portfolio is the 321-room Sheraton Brooklyn that opened this year in downtown Brooklyn in a dual-brand project with a sister brand, Aloft Hotels.
Select-service Four Points by Sheraton has four hotels in the city, including one in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City, which is quickly coming into its own as an important New York hotel sub-market. Brian McGuiness, senior vp for specialty select brands, cited Long Island City’s “10 minute and one-subway-stop” proximity to the East Side of Manhattan as one of the reasons why.
Element, Starwood’s new environmentally friendly brand that was initially positioned as an extended-stay product, has only nine properties open, but one is in Manhattan. McGuiness calls the Element New York Times Square West “green from the ground up, and notes that Starwood requires developers of all Element hotels to pursue LEED certification.
The crown jewel of Starwood’s brand roster remains St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, and the grande dame of the brand remains the 107-year-old St. Regis New York on Fifth Ave. & 55th St. The hotel has undergone a series of renovations in recent years, but still aspires to the luxury standards of its founder, John Jacob Astor, more than a century ago.
The one Starwood brand to go un-represented in New York was Luxury Collection, but that was corrected in late-April when The Chatwal, the eponymous hotel on West 44th St., off Times Square, owned by Chatwal Hotels & Resorts, joined the Collection.
More than 75 luxury hotels and resorts in more than 30 countries belong. “Their owners believe there is significant equity built into these hotels’ names, so they’re not interested in a typical brand affiliation,” noted Paul Sacco, Starwood’s senior vp for North American development. “But they do see the value of being part of the company’s marketing and reservations programs.”
An adaptive reuse of the landmark former 1904-era Lambs Club, the 83-room Chatwal was originally designed by architect Stanford White. Paris-based interior designer Thierry Despont oversaw the refurbishment, which included the addition of four extra floors of guestrooms set back from the rest of the building so as not to be visible from the street.