Originally Posted by
khabah
Spark is expanding into Austria with two new hotels in Vienna:
- Spark by Hilton Vienna Donaustadt / 198 rooms
- Spark by Hilton Vienna Messe Prater / 243 rooms
Both hotels are opening before the year is out. It's amazing to see how quickly this plucky brand is expanding, and even though many of their US hotels are dying Hamptons with a new lease on life, I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the world's standards brings this brand to life.
I haven't been paying a ton of attention to Spark but are these the first non-US/NA properties or were they beat to the punch?
The speed of adoption shouldn't be too surprising as I understand the brand positioning: Minimal hard brand standards/consistency requirements mean that many properties that can no longer meet the requirements for a Hampton Inn-tier property (both HI and the competitive set, but particularly as HI has been drifting up-market over the past 20 years) likely need not a whole lot more than a fresh coat of paint and maybe some furniture, vs a new-build HGI which has a lot more stringent hard requirements and consistency expectations which extends the process.