Category Archives for Hotels.
A decade ago IHG completed its acquisition of Kimpton Hotels. They outbid Hyatt for the asset, and promptly destroyed it.
Kimpton could have been a fabulous acquisition but IHG never understood what to do with it, and they were the wrong chain to pull it off.
With today’s announcement dubbed “If It’s Yellow Let It Mellow, If It’s Brown Flush It Down” the global hotel giant will encourage guests to flush in-room toilets less frequently.
When Marriott took over Starwood and then launched the Bonvoy program, they told owners that the economics would work out better for them. Part of how they did it is by forcing these scam charges on their customers. Yet their owner contracts explicitly allow Marriott to halt these fees.
There’s a reasonable chance that if the project is ever sold the building could even be demolished and started over and the concept could change. There’s no reason to think at this point that if the property ever gets completed that it will be, in part, a Park Hyatt hotel.
I’ve given a lot of thought to what makes a hotel great, and how simple design flaws can ruin a property. More often though great physical properties can be ruined by poor service execution or short-sighted cost cuts.
Hoteliers: ever wonder why a property with great facilities and a competitive room rate in a good location isn’t getting the level of midweek repeat business it might expect? It may come down to something simple.
Are expensive hotels “that much better” to justify their extra cost? A modest price over cheaper accommodations may buy you a better stay, but once you get past a few hundred dollars does the extra money really buy you very much?
I can’t rely on the order of placement of the bottles in hotel showers. I need to read the labels. But invariably, writing on the labels is always too small for me to read without glasses. I have to get in the shower with my glasses on, remember which bottle is where, get out to remove my glasses and get back in.
A guest at Marriott’s Courtyard Battle Creek in Michigan discovered a lewd drawing on the wall-mounted toiletries that was presumably left by a previous guest.
Housekeeping either doesn’t clean and refill the bottles, or saw it and didn’t care enough to change them out when turning the room. Since the guest reports that showing a photo to the front desk elicited a shrug, either option seems equally likely.
The hotel incentivizes giving 9s and 10s. A hotel that actually wants to be better would incentivize providing constructive feedback. Here they incentivize helping them skirt Marriott brand standards. That’s the most franchised Marriott thing ever.
Marriott Bonvoy is looking to make a couple of hires that suggest changes coming to the program.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
