Originally Posted by
leeky
no need as I've been in the hotelier business for over 40-years, first as a civil engineer building them and for the past 30-years as an atty so I have a desk full of various stds obtained thru work as General Counsel and others thru subpoenas in various cases but they are proprietary so I won't offer to share, but if you think a few hundred Starwood owners are gonna shell out $500k just to meet the Hyatt stds I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that I'll sell on the cheap
You are assuming that a combined Hyatt-Starwood will eliminate brands for simplicity. The nature of the hotel market is such that I'm not sure that will happen as much as some might expect.
Sheraton is a much bigger brand than Hyatt worldwide. Sheraton has a great reputation outside the USA, even as it has troubles in the USA. I doubt Sheraton would be eliminated or merged into Hyatt. It's more likely the other way around, but I doubt that, too. Sheratons in the USA are the ones with the brand issues that Starwood is already trying to correct, so I imagine those are the ones that Hyatt-Starwood would first try to take to task by either improving to Sheraton brand quality or transitioning to Hyatt or a downgraded brand (or dropped altogether where Hyatt already has good presence/share).
Westin is as big and nice a brand as Grand Hyatt/Hyatt Regency, so either these are continued separately or merged.
Le Meridien is a brand standard space that Hyatt currently doesn't occupy. I wouldn't think they would delete it.
St. Regis is a brand that is equivalent in many ways to Park Hyatt...but there are FAR more St. Regis properties. I seriously doubt St. Regis would be re-branded. I also doubt that PH would be merged into St. Regis--though maybe I'm wrong. Istanbul would be an interesting problem in that case, since there is a StR and PH a block from each other; otherwise, there is not much overlap between StR and PH geographically, and the style differences between them make this less of an issue.
W and Andaz are in many ways comparable...but Hyatt likes to say Andaz are just more lifestyle oriented Park Hyatts, a reflection with which I heartily don't agree. There are far more W properties than Andaz, so my guess is that W survives since its brand is far more prevalent around the world. I can see W becoming the urban brand and Andaz becoming the resort brand, perhaps.
No idea what will happen with Four Points, Aloft, Element, Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Centric, but I stay at these rarely. So I couldn't much care.
Luxury Collection, Tribute Portfolio, and Design Hotels have no equivalent in Hyatt. These will stay exactly as they are, most likely--a big boon and addition for Hyatt, which has been trying to expand into this segment unsuccessfully for a decade.