IHG to launch new midscale brand
 

Apologies if this was already posted but a search didn't turn anything up.

From Travel Weekly:

Full article:

http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-N...midscale-brand

Saved you a click.

Personally I'm not overwhelmed by this move, I think IHG already has too many brands with too little differentiation.

Candlewood is low-end not mid-scale.

If they believe thay Holiday Inn and HIX is upper midscale then the new midscale will most likely be similar to motel 6 or Formule 1.

It's pretty uncontroversial that HI is upper midscale, just like BW+, Clarion, Comfort Inn, Park Inn, Country Inn & Suites, Hampton Inn, Tryp by Wyndham, Fairfield Inn & Suites, Home2Suites, ...

I agree.^^

lol yep! Staying at one right now on Points Break!

My guess is this has something to do with the success of Tru by Hilton - in just 16 months since launch, there are 425 Tru properties in development and IHG want a bit of that business.

You obviously don't know what low end means in the hotel industry. Please stay at a Motel 6 followed by a Days Inn, and then compare that to a Candlewood.

I'd say Candelwood is at the low end of midscale, but not the low end of hotels overall.

AFAIK Candlewood always has a fitness center, free self-service laundry, a lending library, and a pantry, and each room has kitchen facilities and cookware/utensils. That's far beyond what a true low end hotel brand like Motel 6 or Days Inn has.

Aren't those more aspects of the extended stay category, vs. quality factors?

Holiday Inn and Hampton Inn/Holiday Inn Express are two different categories.

Holiday Inn is a Full Service brand and upscale. It has a restaurant, a variety of room types incl. suites and eventually room service, a pool. However there is a variety of Holiday Inn Hotels which makes you feel sometimes staying at different categories but with same brand.

Hampton by Hilton is a limited service brand and midscale such as Holiday Inn Express. No real restaurant, only breakfast and snacks. Standard room types.

It could not been proven yet that the "Tru by Hilton" concept - if that is what IHG wants to copy - will be successful. I understood this is a kind of low service category of hotel with lower costs for the owners to build it and to run it. It is promoted as a "hip" concept to younger people. I read about a different breakfast concept also, and lobby concept (like Moxy maybe). I am not in the hotel industry but that is what I understood. If finally the (younger) guests pay less and feel better than in a HIX or Hampton is the question.

Personally I do believe IHG should work also on the premium and luxury segment. More Crowne Plazas, upgraded to small InterContinentals, plus IC, Kimpton and Indigo to form a luxury group with better footprint. Eventually reactivate the Holiday Inn Select brand in addition. A brand above IC is missing, like Park Hyatt, Ritz Carlton. Maybe IHG and Hyatt should join forces. IHG knows better to run midscale and lower upscale, Hyatt knows upper upscale and luxury better IMHO. Premium/luxury both know to run (IC, Grand Hyatt).

If you think all these are the same level, your experience is vastly different from mine.

I would rank
(1) BW+, Hampton Inn, Fairfield Inn and Suites
(2) Clarion, Comfort Inn, Park Inn, Country Inn and Suites — definitely a lower category than (1) with the exception of a few Clarions

Have not stayed at Tryp or Home2Suites

My personal peeve is that IHG keep relabeling Holiday Inns as Crowne Plaza in order to charge more for the same facilities (tiny bathrooms, tatty carpets, etc).

Too many poor brands already, I mean most of them are just rubbish.

Aside from IC which is a mixed bag in itself, what is worthwhile? Indigo and a selected few CPs

Grade inflation!

Industry hotel categorization is not based on quality. There are some full-service hotels out there that are total dumps, but that doesn't change them from being full-service hotels. There are some budget properties which may be really nice for what are, but their minimal features/services keeps them classified as budget properties.

While yes, what I listed above are extended stay features, a low end extended stay might not have half of those features. There are cheapo extended stays out there without fitness centers, without free guest laundry, without lending libraries, etc. They have just the bare minimum for you to survive on an extended stay, while Candlewood goes beyond the bare minimum.

While I've stayed at lower-end extended stays before, it was well over a decade ago, so I don't remember clearly the brands and their features. But there are certainly "budget" extended stay chains out there, by comparison to which (a well-maintained) Candlewood would seem definitely at least on the lower end of midscale.

Marriott's Town Place reminded me of Home2Suites. My H2S stays was "nicer" than my Candlewood one.

Even hotel is a flop. Hotel Indigo is close to a waste of time and money except that very few that can stand out. Hualuxe is expanding yet I heared some hotel owners are converting the original concept to Crowne Plaza instead. So they are going to waste yet more money to invent a new brand to compete on a already competitive world that other people already had the concept running?

What IHG should do is to buy Best Western, then convert BW Premier to Crowne Plazas, BW Plus to Holiday Inns and keep BW brand for other hotels that could not meet any brand standard as independent BW hotels.

Even better, why not reinforce the current brands and make them better???

Guys, I'm not just saying this based on IHG investor relations material. All other chains' IR material also views HI and HIX as competitors in the upper midscale segment.

Then google a bit to find classifications and analyses of the hotel market by professional third parties. They all rank HI as well as HIX in the upper midscale segment. I find zero controversy when I look at what the pros say.

Instead, controversial would be the ranking of Novotel (they are often ranked upscale but with a note that they are a notch below other brands in the upscale segment).

Not likely. BW operates in a way that's incompatible with most "big" hotel programs. Every BW property is "individually owned and operated" is the motto, but beyond that, every BW property seems to have been individually built, so there is no brand standard in appearance or hotel layout. Many BW hotels, including Premier and Plus, are two-story hotels with no elevator. How in the world is that compatible with turning them into Crowne Plaza or Holiday Inn? :confused:

In fact, most BW Plus hotels don't have a restaurant! Please tell me how that is compatible with turning them into a Holiday Inn? :confused:

You sound like someone who's hardly ever stayed at Best Western Plus or Premier hotels. Perhaps you stayed at one or two, and got a distorted view of how they are overall?

That is exactly the reason IHG needs a brand like BW. Individually built and run without participate in heavy marketing activities. If IHG needs expansion to compete with Mega Marriott, IHG needs large number of hotels and rooms expansion fast while not to affect its own core market. BW would be a better fit as the normal BW is in the lower end of market with few BW Premier has the potential of changing flag. To do that BW needs to get rid of BW Premier and Plus properties and keep the brand simple.

Of course if that happens IHG and BW will evaluate which property is meeting the CP standard and which is not. I don't think they will be stupid enough to convert every BW Premier to CP.

What IHG needs is a truly upscale brand like Mandarin Oriental or Shangri-La and a truly lower end market brand like BW or Super 8/Motel 6 a like. Anything in-between will only make internal competition situation worse as HI, HIX and CP are fighting in the crowded mid-scale plus Indigo, Even, Staybridge and Candelwood do fit in the broader market as well.

To have another mid-scale brand IMO is self hurting measures. Keep your core mid scale brand strong but expand in market you are less in control.

BW might not fit with IHG but I think the only way IHG can expand is to go up and to go down (market). If IHG has BW, IHG should use BW as Mercure in Accor, individual properties but not flashy. While Kimpton and Indigo being a little bit upscale, BW could be the lowest end of market for IHG.

You want true low end?
Here is my vote.... Knights Inn:D

A bit surprised that Holiday Inn Express is a upper-midscale. Other than some of those, they are midscale at most IMO. On the other hand, it is sometimes hard to differentiate the class of Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza. Both are quite midscale (or upper midscale) in quite a lot of places.

Regarding a new brand, I'd prefer a new one in between HI/CP and IC. IC in some places are just so much more expensive than the gap between them and HI/CP is so big. Another midscale brand however doesn't seem necessary.

What IHG does not have is a "Collection", such as Hilton´s Curio or Tapestry, or Starwood´s Tribute Portfolio. As BW is also a kind of collection of individual hotels I would agree generally with your idea. But BW has a lot of crappy 3* hotels, too, which would not fit in any standard. May be the Premier hotels would be ok.

Well I understood HIX should be upper midscale and HI should be lower upscale, but I have been to HIs and HIX which did not fulfill the criteria.

Regarding your proposal of a brand between HI(/CP) and IC: Absolutely yes, but I thought CP should be that brand? If not, for what is it good? This brand should be upgraded to be an "IC light" IMHO.

They probably need to fix Crowne Plaza instead of this. Crowne Plaza is basically a garbage brand in the US and while there may be a few good ones, there are many poor ones. They are about on par with a brand like Clarion which is not really a legitimate brand anymore.

I really struggle finding decent IHG properties to stay at in the US beyond newer HIX locations which are fine largely due to being newer (we will see how they are at age 20-25). I've also gotten to stay at a couple new build Holiday Inns that were actually very nice; Eugene, OR and St. George, UT come to mind.

I thought Holiday Inn was the mid-scale brand. It is a full service mid-scale hotel? Not as nice as a Hilton or Marriott, but full service...?

Yes you are right. HI is the full service MID-SCALE brand while CP is designed to be a more upscale HI (hens was named as Crowne Plaza by Holiday Inn initially).

Thankfully IHG was going through the UP programme for CP and try to make it a more upscale brand last two years. Very slowly but you will see improvement soon.

The problem IHG had from previous years is that IC was competing both in Luxury and Upscale category while CP was competing both in Upscale and upper mid-scale category. Hopefully this could be ratified with new property coming online. The older ones can not changed due to management or franchise contract unfortunately.

The problem is every BW is so different (from the next one), it would be hard to integrate most of them into any existing IHG brands. So they'd have to keep them as separate brands.

Thus I don't see why IHG would want to acquire a brand that doesn't fit the conecept of hotel tiers at all.

If they want something lower midscale to get them going quick, why not something like La Quinta? (AFAIK, it's owned by the same holding company that owns Hilton -- I forget if it's Blackstone or someone else -- does that same company own IHG?)

Some points to make:
1, lower end of market can not operate a FFP the same way IHG Rewards operate. Look at the case of Ibis in Accor.
2, Have independent hotels that do not fit your normal business circumstances is a win-win for both party. That is why IHG acquired Kimpton rather than rumoured Swissotel and Fairemont (bought by Accor instead)
3, BW is a global company with over 3000-4000 properties. That would push IHG back to the number one in the global ranking;
4, La Quinta was owned by Blackrock but now listed. It has financial problems as I followed this stock for over one year now. And the problem is that La Quinta overlaps with Holiday Inn Express and it is USA domestic brand, with virtually little international presence.
5, In contrast, BW is well known globally. However, its problem is, as you indicated, has no brand standard. IHG buy into BW can solve the problem by reflagging properties that are functional as CP or HI and HIX, while retain other lower end properties that can not be reflagged as BW. Problem solved. A parallel branding exercise with CP/HI/HIX sext the standard and a non-standard brand of BW dealing with smaller rural properties that require little investment.

When you expand by merge, you can go either:
A, merge with someone big in the same field to strength your market position; or
B, merge with someone in a different field to broad your market segmentation

If IHG needs to go down the Route A, it needs to merge with Hilton or Accor. Otherwise, BW is a better choice in different market segmentation while provide a large number of properties that would make IHG number 1 hotel group again.

Ive been to a CP in the US, and yes it was rather tired, fraying carpets etc.

In UK/Ireland, it is very much an upscale, business brand e.g. total refurbishment of all soft furnishings every few years. Very differentiated from HI which is more of a holidaymakers brand, very mid scale.

HIX I see as a minimal service, budget brand, along with Premier Inn and Travelodge over here.

This could be a way for the future IHG brand standards:
(From this perspective there is space for a midscale brand below HIX)


Crowne Plaza Berlin Potsdamer Platz

around two years old I think, like a premium Hilton (see the room photos, similar Hilton Berlin which was renovated some years ago, maybe a bit smaller room size but partly nicer, excellent buffet breakfast, they even offer Spires comp. club lounge I heard):

https://www.ihg.com/crowneplaza/hote...hotos-tours_cp


Holiday Inn Berlin - City East Side

nearly new, IHG Hotel of the year (Holiday Inn group). I would say that is full service and upscale. 24h business center.

https://www.ihg.com/holidayinn/hotel....nd.ct&qWch=0#

https://translate.google.de/translat...7490%2F3605218

In the Holiday Inn Hotel Berlin -City East Side a new Open Lobby Concept from Holiday Inn Hotels has bene realised the first time in Germany. All areas overlap each other loosely and pleasantly to you relax and enjoy your time at the Hotel.

Summary
Restaurants On-site: 1
Cocktail Lounge
24-hour Lounge
Room Service Available in Executive Rooms, Suites and Rooms from
6:30 AM - 11:00 PM


Holiday Inn Express Berlin Alexanderplatz

just opened, has got a bar which serves hot snacks incl. some typical from Berlin all day, a multifunctional lobby, business area, smart TVs, etc. Seems to be a kind of upgraded HIX.

https://www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpres...ax/hoteldetail

America's Best Value Inn would give Knights Inn a run for its money. :D :D :D

BW actually has 10 brands, not 3. It's just that most of the other 7 brands are new and not that many properties in them yet. But if you go to BW and do a hotel search, and scroll down on the left see a filter to choose only some not all of those 10 brands).

But why BW with all the "no two hotels anywhere near the same" integration mess? Why not buy Wyndham Hotel Group instead? Or Choice Hotels (Choice Privileges is the only other program besides IHG with points + cash that works as "buying points" in the background!), except that Choice is not really integrated worldwide yet (for example, there's a separate Nordic Choice program in Scandinavia!).

Anyway, you and I are not making these decisions (nor have any input into those decisions), so why worry about them so much? :confused:

If you want a hotel program that's bonkers about buying brands, you're really in the wrong forum. Marriott was on a wild buying spree even before it swallowed up SPG, adding Gaylord, Delta, Protea, etc all in the last few years. It's up to 30 brands now (counting Marriott and Rtiz and SPG programs).

There were threads very similar to this one (in the Hilton forum) when Hilton announced some months ago that it was developing a lower midscale brand (lower than Hampton Inn is now, though perhaps closer to what Hampton Inn was when Hilton first acquired it?). Again lots of people on FT suggested they buy, but they had already made the decision to create a new brand themselves from scratch. Hilton didn't listen to us, and I don't see why IHG will either.

Interesting. I had never even heard of the other (new) brands.

https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/ho...rn/brands.html

Bummed to hear that about La Quinta. I've had good luck with them when the usual suspects were coming in too expensive for my taste.

I do think that if LQ is looking for a dancing partner, Accor is the most logical merge partner because there's pretty much no overlap between the two chains, and the North American middle market, while very competitive is also very glaring gap in Accor's footprint. We're talking, what? 3-4 Novotels in NYC and Quebec?

You'll be surprised to hear that this household find the newer HIX properties around Europe perfectly acceptable and "pleasant" for short stays.
We tend to pit stop at HIX Bremen and HIX Dijon during our road trips to Southern France. It helps that the properties are new and clean of course.

Same with the newer American HIXes. We've been very happy with Sequim, WA (nice roof top garden deck) and the new concept Tampa-Wesley Chapel.

And had our first time at a Staybridge Suites last week- huge nice rooms by London standards, two category Spire upgrade even though it was a points stay, and that same room can often be had for less than £200 a night with advance planning. Despite the low point earning of the brand, am looking forward to our next SBS already

As someone who mainly stays in the UK and mainland Europe, give me a Hampton over an HI any day. As for UK HIXes, they are only good for pointsbreaks and Accelerate mattress runs.

I'm skeptical about wanting to stay at this new "midscale" brand as it would presumably slot in below HIX-- which is classified as "upper mid-scale" per industry terminology. Yes, I know many travelers would quibble over that term personally, but it's a moot point. It's an accepted industry designation.

The thing is, I like HIX. Its quality level and consistency led me to make IHG one of my main programs for the last 6 years. I can book into an unfamiliar property with confidence I'll enjoy everything I need for a great basic stay. That's just where my standards are at nowadays. I'd be loathe to shop one category lower. Especially because if it's a cheaper, more basic HIX it'd probably be relative to HIX what Candlewood Suites is to Staybridge Suites. Nope.

the new HIX is nice. Have you stayed in the middlesborough property? It will be the new style HIX to come.

it looks like an improvement on the one in Newcastle which is pretty basic, Hampton in town is much better

The following upgraded brands / categories I would suggest for IHG. Then there is space for a NEW midscale brand ("HIX light"):

- IC Grand (like Carlton) - luxury (Maybe "IC Empire"? Too much "Grand" already)
- IC (like Frankfurt) - upper upscale/premium
- CP (like new ones, e.g. Crowne Plaza Berlin Potsdamer Platz) - upscale full service, premium business. Eventually cobranded "by InterContinental"

- HI (like new ones, e.g. HI Berlin East or Zurichsee Switzerland) - upper midscale full service.
- HIX (like new ones, e.g. Berlin Alexanderplatz) - midscale extended limited service
- "HIX light" NEW "hip" midscale like "Tru" oder "Moxy" for smaller cities where IHG is not present - midscale low service

Others:

- Kimpton: not stayed yet, don´t know what to say about it, but I am not a "Boutique" fan
- Even: do not need
- Indigo: do not Need