Why Hilton Has No Springhill Suites Clone
 

I was just curious, why does Hilton not have a Springhill Suites clone? Before anyone says that the Embassy Suites is close enough, not really. Embassy came first, and it's usually seen in urban locations (a two-room suite is more space than a suite that boasts 25% more space than the average room). Anyone says the suites at Hampton or HGI, okay, but that isn't close enough.

Would Home2 Suites not be considered closer to Springhill Suites than Embassy Suites?

Comparing the Hilton portfolio to Marriott's, I'd align Homewood Suites with Residence Inn, and Home2 Suites with Springhill.

Home2 Suites is more on the level of Towneplace by Marriott.

Well, that's ultimately the answer: Hilton doesn't market a Springhill clone because it has fewer than half as many brands as Marriott. The latter group markets 30+ flags, and who can tell the difference between half of them? Seriously, to the layperson, what distinguishes Residence Inn from Springhill Suites from Townplace?

Yes — and who distinguishes a Ritz Carlton from a Fairfield Inn, anyway?!?

Okay — now that we got that laugh out of the way...

Can you name some specific differentiating features of this brand that you feel Hilton fails to offer?

There's not much brand consistency across the limited service properties generally . . . there are HGIs that IMO equate to Springhill Suites, particularly the Springhill Suites that are not new construction.

I will say though that the Springhill Suites San Diego Bayside is the nicest limited service property I've ever seen (by a large margin), and all the chains would do well to study what Marriott has done there. It is equally attractive to business travelers and vacationing families.

MS makes a valid point. The average American leisure traveler would be at a loss to distinguish one limited service suites brand from another.

I have no hesitation in saying that 30 different hotel brands — which Marriott International currently has in its portfolio — is way too many for the average traveler to want to understand the differentiation.

One can even argue that point with the brand portfolio of Hilton, for that matter...

For many years, Hilton had been managing its brand portfolio conservatively. Each of its offerings was reasonably well defined, save of course for the catch-all DoubleTree. But CEO Christopher Nassetta seems intent on expanding into smaller and smaller niches, which will no doubt lead to confusion. The properties look nice, but what is Canopy's core proposition? We now have two "collection" brands—Curio and Tapestry—with a third in the works. Where does it end?

So long as the individual properties are high quality, the branding doesn't much matter. But the obsessive compulsive in me would like to see Hilton establish a manageable number of well-defined concepts and execute on them consistently.

I knew Marriott had a large number of brands but I had no idea it was that huge, it's worse than the Mercedes Benz range! I've not heard of half of them, even with someone who keeps my ear close to the ground when it comes to travel! Sure, it's not helped by the Starwood merger but there's so much overlap...

Maybe it's because I'm not a hotelier or branding expert but I think that the Marriotts/Hiltons of this world should be able to pigeonhole any of their properties into no more than say 8 brands. If that doesn't work and it's a unique property then don't brand it, or just call it XYZ by Hilton/Conrad whatever...

You have to understand the history of SpringHill Suites.

It started out as Fairfield Suites, and then got renamed. (It later changed a bit to distinguish itself more from Fairfield Inn, but the point is that's how it started.)

So the reason Hilton doesn't have an equivalent because it didn't have a Hampton Suites to rename, and nothing quite like SpringHill Suites was ever created as a "brand from scratch".

Well, but the counterquestion would be:

Why does Marriott have no Hilton Garden Inn clone? (Courtyard with its goofy bistro is certainly not it.) You can't explain that with the 30+ brands explanation! :D

Ie, every hotel program may have something that isn't quite cloned at other hotel programs, but that "something" is different at every hotel program.

Didn't Hilton try to clone Marriott's W chain and get sued? They still have no hip Hilton brand for young party goers.