Originally Posted by
kaizen7
I believe Marriott did positioned W brand along those StR RC and LuxCol (and some of W have price to match those hotel)
As for the W brand itself ..... I would say the closest competitor outside Marriott universe for W will be Sofitel SO (not sure if Hyatt and Hilton have similar style)
Luxury yet funky and also cool and hip but not display too much aristocratic luxury like StR and less formal .... doubt the dtaff will be saying "my pleasure" that often
Hyatt Andaz is similar to W in some ways and also sometimes has service failures that seem to be caused by unprofessional young front desk agents, concierges, lounge hosts, etc. too.
Originally Posted by
bhrubin
OK everyone, I think we may he getting OT unnecessarily. It wasn’t even [MENTION=169986]UA-NYC[/MENTION] (or me) who first made the inaccurate income comment claiming Courtyard guests make more than W guests; we just responded to show that was almost certainly preposterous.
I think some people herein are not big fans of the W brand and just piled on after the OP shared the poor stay details at the W Atlanta. (I’m not even sure I remember which one, since there are 3 Ws in Atlanta. Chances are good it’s the Midtown one if I had to guess.)
It’s perfectly fine to not like Ws. It just not accurate that all other people (even those who aren’t Millennials) agree. I’m a Gen Xer who can very much enjoy a W. But I’ll still take the St Regis first.
I think it’s also clear that the answer to our OP’s query is NO. Not all Ws are that bad. Most Ws have pretty good service. Every W has better service overall (and certainly better facilities and amenities) than almost any Courtyard. Most Ws have better service than most JWs in my experience, partly because most Ws are a lot smaller than most JWs. That being said, almost all hotels have service lapses when they are near full occupancy. And there always will be outliers that are not good representatives of their brand. The terrible W in Atlanta is right there with the terrible Four Seasons in Sydney as pitiful examples for their brands...but that doesn’t make the brands themselves bad.
It was W Atlanta Midtown, vaguely near the art museum and the Atlanta Fed, not the downtown one (which IIRC started its life as another hotel brand, thus explaining the nondescript modern building that's not a high rise and a bit away from the center) and not the Buckhead one with its unique style/art and lighter colors.
Originally Posted by
acrophobia
W generally isn’t my favorite brand, but there are some good ones (Minneapolis for great elite recognition, Scottsdale, and HK come to mind).
I agree with you on Minneapolis and Hong Kong, but I wasn't impressed at all by Scottsdale, including the location.
Originally Posted by
JBord
So your theory is you can't tell a person's income by the clothes they buy, but you can by the hotel room they buy?
I like your use of "probably" in explaining the "data".
All you can tell from the data is that not all high income people stay at W's and not all low-income people stay at CY's. The average revenue is based on price, not income or social class. I agree that data rules, but you haven't cited any. You're making what you believe is a reasonable guess. The same as the person who guessed that CY guests make more money that W guests. There's no data available to back either one.
Marriott does not know the income or the net worth of their guests. I'd actually suggest the latter is more relevant than the other anyway. How can this data be available if they don't have it?
I agree with quite a bit of this. But I'm a little tired of threads that devolve into SPG is greater than Marriott and vice versa. The fake "income" argument from either side here is annoying. Responding to someone's absurd comment about income with an equally absurd opposite comment doesn't make sense to me, but maybe I'm just missing the point.
I hope I'm not offending either of you, because that's not my intent. I've read posts from both of you in other FT forums and generally respect your points of view. But these income posts just continue the SPG vs. Marriott sniping, which has nothing to do with the OP's post about W's. The reality is simply that maybe the W is not the best brand for the OP -- there are plenty of others to try though!
It might help if you were to define high and low income. A lot of low income people don't stay in hotels at all. In fact, some are homeless while others might stay at what are sometimes called welfare hotels.
I think you mean to say "all W guests are high income" not "all high income people stay in Ws" and "all CY guests are low income" versus "all low income people stay in CYs." They're still obviously false generalizations.
BTW, Marriott probably thinks it knows a lot about our socioeconomic status, incomes, education levels, political and religious beliefs, home values, etc., for instance from GPS data by zip code. There was a thread in the DL forum about such data being temporarily visible to us in a place on the DL website and you would be amazed at the stuff about which DL was speculating.
Originally Posted by
C17PSGR
I like W's
I agree they have been service and higher rates than CY's (although $30 isn't much for Chicago ...)
But having the experience in life of knowing people who work in call centers, knowing people who are Harvard MBA's working in global consulting firms, knowing senior execs and board members, and knowing trust funders ... as well as talking to people staying there, its pretty clear to me that a responsible financial advisor would advise the typical guest at many -- but not all -- W's to stick with the Kia. And ... that's part of the service inconsistency issue. For example, while staying at a W recently and asking for a late checkout while walking back into the hotel, I received the standard "I'm sorry sir but we're fully committed" even when they obviously weren't, didn't really check, and didn't seem to care about elite status (it was listed as a resort so the guarantee didn't apply) . In contrast, the GM had emailed me earlier to ask about my stay (I hadn't raised any issues -- he was checking in because I was Ambassador) so I emailed him back and he immediately approved the late checkout.
Like all properties, they are highly dependent on whether they have an engaged GM.
Does anyone remember the Acura Experience free rides that were offered by most USA Ws?