stuartpig

I was reading about the awful Britannia hotel chain last night. I knew Marriott sold the Sunderland and Gosforth Park Marriotts to them, but also the Sprowston Manor, Hollins Hall and Meon Valley. They will now run them into the ground. I loved the Sunderland one, it was on the coast and one of only 3 coastal Marriott hotels. What I cannot comprehend is why they disposed of these and then bought the diabolical Telford Golf and Country Club ( think down at heel rooms on the edge of a dismal housing estate, the picture of the Georgian house is deceptive), a dreary looking hotel in Milton Keynes and a drab “just off the M5” hotel between Cheltenham and Gloucester. Would have had some interest if it were in the centre of either town. I would understand if they had off loaded some older hotels and built some quality full service hotels in interesting places. It is dreadfully sad when a lovely hotel has been sold to Britannia, too.

Raffles

"Marriott" rarely offloads anything, because it doesn't own anything.

It is probably more accurate to say that the owner of the hotels is no longer willing to pay Marriott's fees, or is unwilling to make certain expenditures to keep the hotels at the standard Marriott demands, and has therefore sold them - or given a management contract - to Britannia.

There is no doubt they are doomed though. It was amusing to see Blackpool council raise objections when the Hilton went to Britannia, because the council knew what was coming.

stuartpig

Yes, I guess so. I know there are some actual Marriott owned properties in the UK, not sure which. Britannia must have a huge footprint in the UK now.

RAPC

Marriott own very few of their properties in the UK as the bulk of the owned ones went years ago. Most of the UK portfolio is Marriott flagged, rather than owned. A number of those properties who have left Marriott over the past few years have departed as it coincided with owners being asked to invest money in to getting or keeping them at brand standards. Anything that went to Britannia is a good case in point.

I don't believe any of the 3 properties joining Marriott are owned by Marriott, they are re-flagged by their owners. In the case of the one at Cheltenham, it is outside of town, but in a pleasant location and we had a very nice stay there back in the summer. Don't knock 'em until you've tried them.

stuartpig

I am willing to try a new hotel, but I like central hotels so I can wander the town centre not walk 4 miles first or have to take the car out!! Best new hotel is the Courtyard in Oxford. Central, quiet and I like the Courtyard concept.

Horace

According to the 2019 Annual Report of Marriott International, the company owns one hotel in the UK and leases two.

Owned:
Courtyard by Marriott Aberdeen Airport, Aberdeen, UK

Leased:
Grosvenor House, A JW Marriott Hotel, London, UK
W London, Leicester Square, London, UK

The same three properties are also the only UK properties owned or leased by Marriott International according to the 2017 and 2018 annual reports.

Horace

Marriott.com currently has 14 properties in the UK identified as "New Hotels."

Abbey Hotel Bath, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel
Aloft Birmingham Eastside
Courtyard Glasgow SEC
Courtyard Keele Staffordshire
Courtyard London City Airport
Courtyard London Heathrow Airport
Delta Hotels Telford Golf & Spa Resort
Four Points by Sheraton London Gatwick Airport
Moxy Chester
Moxy Edinburgh Fountainbridge
Moxy Glasgow SEC
Moxy Slough
Residence Inn Slough
The Westin London City

Some opened in 2020. Some will open in 2021.

Most of these are new-builds. A few are re-flags.

Most are select service. Three are full-service. One is extended stay. None are luxury.

There are other new properties under construction in the UK, including the W Edinburgh St James Quarter and the Courtyard Chester City Place, but these are not yet on Marriott.com.

stuartpig

h

Interesting. I had an inkling it was more.

MSPeconomist

Are there currently any (enforced) Marriott brand standards?

Horace

Yes, of course Marriott still has standards for each of its brands.

It's open for discussion whether these standards are high enough and sufficiently enforced. Marriott earns its revenue by collecting its percentage, so Marriott has no interest in kicking hotels out of the system. But Marriott also needs to assure that hotel guests' experiences are not marred by poorly run or poorly maintained properties. Reputation is built over time, but can be lost quickly.

Marriott's 30 brands are probably bewildering to most people, but these brands allow Marriott to set brand-appropriate guest expectations.

The OP is disappointed by Delta Hotels Telford Golf & Spa Resort, Delta Hotels by Marriott Milton Keynes, and Delta Hotels by Marriott Cheltenham Chase. But these hotels are branded as Delta Hotels, which is Marriott's conversion brand. My expectations for Delta Hotels is a bland property, probably several decades old, unlikely to have a great location, but with a reasonably nice superficial renovation. My expectations for Marriott's other full-service brands are higher.

southlondonphil

Delta Milton Keynes, which is in the Kents Hill community, is the former Hilton Milton Keynes* (Google Street View imagery still shows the old signage on the road outside) and your expectations would be about right.

I actually stayed in this one between Christmas and New Year 2019. about 6 weeks after it had just reopened as a Delta and it is what I would term a 'road warrior' location with the kind of 90's low rise building sprawl you usually find at motorway junctions and smaller airports. At the time they seemed to have refurbished the bar/restaurant area which was quite smart and modern but guest rooms were a bit tired and drab. Oddly, they had decided to renumber the rooms/floors (can't remember whether it was from 0~,1~,2~ to 1~,2~,3~ or vice versa) which had involved sticky-taping a bit of paper/card to the door with the new number and concealing the original, a real 'work in progress"!


* Hilton now has the fancy Doubletree at the MK Dons football stadium which is much nicer but has its own challenges since the rooms ring the entire stadium and consequently it can easily take you 20 minutes to walk to your room from the main lift lobby if it is located at the opposite side from Reception (there's a secondary lift well but it opens to the car-park and you have to walk round the outside of the stadium to get back to the main desk and the restaurant. etc.)

neo_781

Not trying to be picky but I don't understand the statement above. If the large number of brands are bewildering how does that set appropriate expectations? While I am no means an expert or novice (I am somewhere in the middle) I find it nearly impossible to discern the differences between a lot of their brands (both when you look at legacy Marriott and then include the SPG properties). And I think you will find lots of discussion on this board where people can't agree on some of the nuances.

To me it comes down to commercial reasons why they have lots of brands because it enables them to sell their services to multiple developers at different price points and services they provide and also allows them to have multiple properties nearby each other without violating any exclusivity agreements within geographic areas. It really has little to do with the customer.

Horace

Each brand has its owns specifications, which drive guest expectations. For example, even though Aloft and Courtyard are both select service hotels, often located in suburban settings, my expectations for them are quite different. I think that would be true of anyone who has stayed at both Aloft and Courtyard.

I think it's safe to say that If Marriott were designing a brand structure from scratch, there would not be 30 brands. There are too many similar brands, especially in the full-service segment.

However, since the Marriott-Starwood merger, the combined company has made an effort to define each brand more carefully. Some of the differences are strictly cosmetic, but many differences are more substantive. Of course, when Marriott refines brand specifications, existing hotels of that brand do not magically change overnight.

In addition, there are many hotels that have the "wrong brand" for their physical structure, because the "right brand" did not yet exist when they took on their current brand. For example, there are historical, highly distinctive hotels branded as Marriott or Westin because a more appropriate brand such as Autograph Collection was not an option at the time.

My comment about expectations was in a reply post about Delta Hotels. It's good that Marriott now has a conversion brand for lesser full-service properties, instead of branding them with the signature Marriott Hotels brand or with an inappropriate select service brand. Brands set expectations.

I agree that Marriott's many brands give the company more ways to make money from hotel developers/owners. This includes brands that serve similar market segments. Marriott can't sell a second Courtyard by Marriott franchise across the street from an existing one, but Marriott can offer other select service brands: Four Points, AC Hotels, Aloft, Springhill Suites, Fairfield, and Moxy. Some are more appropriate for a specific location and type of hotel guest than another. Once a developer/owner opens a hotel using one of those brands, the hotel guest will have expectations based on experiences at other hotels of of that brand.

Returning to the UK focus of this thread, it's interesting to see what hotels are now being developed in the UK, given that developers now have so many specific brands to choose from.