Never heard of Delano, SLS,house of originals or Mondrian. Where did they pick up these brands? Movenpick purchase? They seem mostly US based.

They are indeed largely US based, the came in with the SBE purchase.

I am not too surprised companies are tightening their budgets. For example in China when my wife travels for business the nightly budget is just 500-600rmb. That will barely get you the cheapest novotel or Mercure in Shanghai or only Ibis in Beijing. I feel sorry for her so I top up some money so she can stay at a more decent hotel. Next week Shanghai Novotel Alantis and then a Novotel Beijing Sanyuan I think it is called.

Maybe an availability heuristic on your part? That is, you're travelling on business a lot yourself and incorrectly generalize from the data most easily available to you (i.e., observations you made yourself). But the data you see gives a highly incomplete picture...

Business travel is heavily concentrated both with regard to day of the week and season. E.g., peak days for business travellers when it comes to hotel stays are Tuesday and Wednesday nights, followed by Monday and Thursday nights. Very few stay Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. And then there's seasonality. E.g., very few business travellers are on the road between mid-December and mid-January (and mid-January until late February is still low season for business travellers). Numbers are considerably lower during the Summer as well.

I found JW generally slightly above Sofitel. Sofitel is some where between a regular Marriott and a flagship Marriott. Novotel seem like courtyard but in Asia sometimes I found Marriott properties have higher standard in building the hotel. For example a nice Marriott or courtyard can simply surpass a regular Sofitel or Novotel.

I never feel Sofitel brand as any that luxury as accord statement, to me it just like any of a regular LM or Marriott..a upscale business hotel. At least there are some JW is nice enough to call it a luxury.

Very random. (and judging by other posts).



Marriott employee?

My limited experience from France, UK, and Switzerland:
Novotel - Cookie cutter business hotel stressing consistency
Mercure - Catch all family oriented hotel
Ibis - consistent economy experience (not for me, but can see the appeal)
Ibis Styles - smart, value, hip targeting young professionals
Sofitel - top end with focus on service (in my limited experience)

Overall, they seem to have upped their game in the last year or so.

I would be curious to know at what Sofitel have you been in Asia and South East Asia ...to speak about them as not luxury hotels and worst compared just to a “simple” Marriott or Courtyard

Somehow I find that chain hotel in Asia tends to be all over the place.
The distinction between the brands is somewhat blurred as there are properties that supposedly a luxury brand end up no where near luxury hotel.
On the other hand, there are hotels that supposedly select service brands yet have all the feature of more upscale brands with service to match.

As for Accor brands, I do see Sofitels is somewhat comparable to Westins and Marriotts. While Fairmonts are comparable to Ritz-Carltons.

Raffleses would be a notch above St Regises (and comparable to some of the higher end offering of The Luxury Collections)

I don't remember reading this before : two new brands for 2022, The Pullman Living and Novotel Living :
https://press.accor.com/asia-and-pac...pines/?lang=en

Accor already have the serviced apartments brand (Adagio), but these seem to be new.

https://www.accorhotels.com/hotels-o...index.en.shtml

I can imagine one tower of the Pullman KLCC to be suitable to be branded as Pullman Living.