1 Hotel cover.indd - Nicola Cottam

Key Issues: Branding
The booking system uses a dynamic pricing model – similar to those used by the budget airlines – which offers
customers cheaper rooms if they book early.
Meanwhile, the Hilton Group is launching an online room selection program this year, enabling guests to view
floor plans and see room photographs. Customers can also check in online within 24 hours of arrival, see the
exact room allocated to them and change it if they wish.
Deloitte predicts a major shift in the tourism market over the next three to five years, when the number of Chinese
holidaymakers travelling to the UK is expected to increase sharply – mirroring the explosion of the Japanese
tourist 10 years ago. Hotels that are established in China itself, like The Holiday Inn – the number one hotel in
China - are likely to gain significantly from this trend, although hotels in general will also benefit provided they
take steps to accommodate Chinese visitors and adapt their services accordingly.
Large hotel groups will have to deal more with the possibility of encroaching on their own territory as the market
for sub-brands continues to expand. Groups that adopt this business model need to be very clear about the differences
between their sub-brands or risk cannibalising their business. In some cases delineations are becoming
blurred. IHG’s Holiday Inn and Express brands are potentially in for a hard time as services like the food offers,
start to overlap.
Customers will continue to be less tolerant about hidden costs and therefore they will demand more clarity on
charges: both statutory ones such as VAT, and those that are service led, such as sending or receiving faxes. Additionally,
they will expect high food and drink standards as the norm. The biggest challenge for hotels in the future,
however, will be in training and retaining good quality staff. The most successful brands are those where customer
service adhere to a brand’s principles and matches high product standards.
Mid to low range hotels could be in the firing line again if they do not clearly define their brand propositions; we
could see some market consolidation, as larger companies may snap up underperformers. Growth will, however,
continue within the lifestyle sector, and particularly at the high-end.
In many ways, brand recognition will be the benchmark by which customers judge hotels, becoming increasingly
important over the next three years as operators recognise branding’s potential to generate loyalty. Brand
consistency is equally important to gain customers’ trust, and the combination of these two – recognition and
consistency, and to a lesser extent, innovation – will go a long way to secure the future of UK hotels.
March 2007 Hotel Report Guide to UK Hotels l © William Reed Publishing 48