James Luckard

Starwood has announced a new "premier tier" division of Sheraton, "Sheraton Grand".

http://www.hotelnewsresource.com/article85157.html

"By year end, Starwood expects to have 50 newly-designated Sheraton Grand hotels around the world with plans for 100 by early 2017."

They have announced the first ten. Most simply appear to be whichever Sheratons happened to have the words "Grand" or "Grande" already in their names.

-Sheraton Grand Bangalore Hotel At Brigade Gateway
-Sheraton Grand Beijing Dongcheng Hotel
-Sheraton Grand Hotel, Dubai
-Sheraton Grand Edinburgh Hotel
-Sheraton Grand Rio Hotel & Resort
-Sheraton Grande Ocean Resort Miyazaki
-Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit
-Sheraton Grande Taipei Hotel
-Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel
-Sheraton Grande Walkerhill

Oddly, one of them is the "Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit", which isn't even a Sheraton, but one of the legacy hotels in the Luxury Collection that still has a Sheraton name dating from before the "Luxury Collection" division was ever founded. I wonder if it will be moved out of the Luxury Collection now, as Starwood has been sensibly weeding the confusing "Sheraton" name out of the LC for the past few years, by renaming or moving hotels.

MSPeconomist

Starwood (and other hotel chains) seem to be suffering from a proliferation of brands. Will the next step to designate a Sheraton Imperial tier too? There are also a bunch of Sheraton Gateways, usually near airports.

James Luckard

Seems designed to compete with JW Marriott, Grand Hyatt, etc.

khabah

There's a Sheraton Grand in Sacramento that hasn't made the list... Yet.

With regards to Starwood weeding out the overlapping Sheraton/Luxury Collection properties, the Sheraton in Kuwait City [for one; Addis Ababa is another] is an iconic hotel in that city and has always carried the Sheraton brand name despite being a member of the Luxury Collection for many years. I don't see it being pulled from the LC portfolio nor losing its name anytime soon. Maybe Starwood is making a few exceptions?

khabah

James Luckard

I suspect it's all to do with long-term contracts to use the Sheraton name. There are 4 remaining "Sheratons" in the LC - Sukhumvit, Kuwait, Addis and Algarve. All the others have been renamed, moved to the Sheraton brand, or disposed of in the last couple of years (Ankara, London Park Tower, Imperial Kuala Lumpur, Sofia, Phuket, etc). I would not be at all shocked to see the Sukhumvit move to the new 'Sheraton Grand" label. I'm honestly surprised they haven't renamed the Algarve as part of the current renovations.

James Luckard

There's also one in Berlin. Of course those two are simply Sheratons that happen to have the word "Grand" in their names, but then some of the others in the new label appear to be the same thing. They only actually renamed three hotels - Bangalore, Beijing and Rio.

khabah

Fair reasoning, especially with all those past examples.

I'm originally from Kuwait and lived there from 2007-14 but have always known that the Sheraton is a bit of a local landmark having been open since 1966. I know its name is important to Kuwait's citizens and long-time residents but it's always been a venerable member of the LC portfolio. I can see the name sticking, but would Starwood demote it from an LC to a boggo Sheraton? I'd be sad to see it lose its positioning, but then again, the damn place needs a strip-down renovation.

khabah

James Luckard

The "Sheraton Gateway" branding was introduced briefly back in the 90s. I suspect the couple of hotels that still carry that name (LAX, Toronto) are again probably just legacy contractual things. There were only ever three other "Gateways", as I remember, at SFO, Atlanta and Chicago O'Hare. SFO is gone, and the other two have both since had the "Gateway" designation removed.

MSPeconomist

I wouldn't be surprised if the Sheraton Park Lane (London) were to become LC when its renovations are finished.

Sheraton Bloomington is another somewhat odd case. Until recently, it was a Sofitel and is just finishing renovations now, but the design doesn't have very many traditional Sheraton touches. People were guessing that it would become a LM after the initially reflagging phase. LC would be a stretch but it seems better in many ways than a USA Sheraton.

James Luckard

That's a very weird case. ITT Sheraton actually bought the property's leasehold outright in 1996, so it wasn't just managed, it was owned. Starwood finally sold it in 2014. However it has never used the Sheraton name. Still, the logo is on a sign outside and all the brochures, etc have always used Sheraton brand standards. The Cervo Hotel in Italy is another case of a Sheraton that doesn't use the name "Sheraton".

MSPeconomist

IIRC it does say Sheraton if you book it and on the confirmation.

Actually not, I just checked. They call themselves The Park Lane Hotel, but the Sheraton logo is on the email confirmation. One wonders whether they're ashamed to be a Sheraton.

I've been told that the Park Tower Knightsbridge (LC) was once a Sheraton and taxi drivers still know it that way.

James Luckard

The Park Tower was built as the Sheraton Park Tower in 1973. It moved to ITT Sheraton's forerunner of The Luxury Collection when that division was founded in the 90s, but it maintained the Sheraton Park Tower name until 2013 - due to a long-term contract, I suspect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pa...tsbridge_Hotel

It's one of the Luxury Collection legacy "Sheratons" I mentioned.

khabah

...you don't suppose that the Park Lane Hotel will join the Tribute Portfolio upon renovation completion? London recently popped up on Tribute's site and the Park Lane was always a bit of an odd duck in the Sheraton fold...

Thoughts?

khabah

Cathay Boy

Isn't Sheraton supposed to be "grand" in the first place? This new tier just means the new Sheraton Grand(e) will be the old Sheraton, and the old Sheraton will be dumbed-down a notch above Four Points but below what Sheraton used to be. I understand marketing and if they wanted to renamed all their Sheratons to Sheraton Grand that would be better, but instead, now we have another tier.... so...

St. Regis
Luxury Collections
W
Le Meridien
Westin
Sheraton Grand(e)
Sheraton
Four Points
Aloft
Element

Adding more tiers simply pushes others down a notch. I rather starwoods make the properties uphold the standards rather than creating more tiers to cover up the fact that many properties are falling behind in standards (like most Sheratons in the USA)

James Luckard

Sheratons overseas are, indeed, usually "grand", but in the US they are often not nearly as fancy. A lot of chains are like this. I remember being shocked by the first few nice Holiday Inns and Best Westerns I saw outside the US, since they're both budget brands here.

Sheraton in the US has always been a mid-range brand, so the new branding makes sense here to create a "fancy" level of Sheraton, like JW Marriott.