Until they add brekkie to the bennies you get at CY for elites, my guess is they can renew the brand all they want but elites will either look to other Marriott brands or hoof it over to HGI. That's fine. Their choice, just as it's elites choice.

Just seems strange that other than Ritzs & resorts - which are not the same branding ;) - CY is the only Marriott brand not to offer brekkie.

What I'd like to see from the branding is WHY that is.

Cheers.

Question: is it perhaps a case where the Courtyard brand negotiates a lot of big-company rates that include breakfast?

I'm trying to reconcile this disconnect between the "business traveler" concept and the withholding of key Gold/Plat benefits at this one brand alone. Since a lot of these CY's are in suburban areas, I'm wondering if the clientele at any single given property is disproportionately skewed to few companies, and Marriott has worked out good deals with those companies.

In the 90's, I usually traveled for business on actual receipts, so I could have cared less whether breakfast was included or not. In the past ten years, nearly all of my clients have been fixed per diem - no more meal receipts - so I will almost never book a business trip in a hotel that doesn't include breakfast.

Since a lot of the big firms (at least in consulting, IT services, etc.) have gone to fixed per diems, it stands to reason that their legions of travelers are following similar booking patterns.

I think MI wants to expand the CY brand outside US and Canada, and in a lot of places like Europe, it makes sense. If you want to stay at a Marriott in Europe and you don't want the FS option, then CY is a natural choice.

I also think that there is a big market in Europe for SHS.

My company doesn't seem to normally do that, but every now and then we will have a breakfast rate.

I wonder if CYs are now focusing primarily on competing by nightly rate alone. It seems that quite often I will see CYs with the lowest rates of all Marriott brands in an area including FFIs, SHSs, RIs, etc.

I have to say that the absence of a free breakfast for at least elites is a puzzler for me too. I haven't had time to read the entire document, but I want to see if at least it mentions breakfasts and its relative importance to the market they're targeting.

And for me, for where I travel, CYs are often among the pricier options. Something like pricing is probably much more location-specific.

To address both points with an example: if I want to stay near YUL, I have 4 Marriott options: a FS at the airport which is usually over $200; a gorgeous FI (as in the best Fairfield I've ever stayed in) opposite the entrance to the airport which can usually be had for $100-120; and a combined CY/RI, where rates for both are between $139-169. Why would I pay $20-30 more to stay at the CY when I get a (very good) free breakfast at the FI?

An enormous amount of time and thought (by whom I don't know) also went into the new Marriott Vacationclub Destinations Point program, and that program is a complete disaster. I have never seen anything like it where its core customers are completely alienated. I am beginning to think that Marriott is hiring consultants rather than relying on internal experts who respect the importance of its 'heavy users'. They appear to be losing touch.

But Courtyard has never ofered free breakfast to Elites have they? Everyone goes on and on about breakfast and then in the same breath about how much worse CY is than it used to be, yet the number one complaint hasn't changed at all.

1) MI is pushing hard to have CY's all convert quickly - I believe at this point (going off memory here) over 85% of the hotels have been brought up to the current standards

2) Yes HGI continues to be ranked #1 (but they did dip to #2 last year) for quality rankings in the tier but it's the brand with the oldest standards when it comes to decor - I'm certainly the folks in Mclean are working on this very item but it's never quick and easy to refresh a brand....or look at it this way - MI did a brand refresh in the early 90's when HGI was hitting critical mass in terms of distribution, HGI and CY were pretty close in terms of product but the segment quickly built upon this and made CY the old brand....Hyatt while building their distribution took the threat of aloft seriously and has forced CY to refresh the brand again....HGI at this point has some serious decisions to make (unfortunately it's never quick or easy to refresh a brand with a sizeable amount of distribution, especially when there are outside owners/different managers involved)

You'd be surprised at the # of elites all MI branded hotels (regardless of flag) have each night

Each hotel company has a profile on not only their own brand but the compsets too but I can't legally discuss them in an open forum but I can give you a comparison:

Dayton-Hudson Corp use to have 3 divisions

Dayton Department Stores/Hudson Department Stores - depending on the state you were in....Later this division was known as Marshall Field's when they purchased that brand
Mervin's
Target

Why 3 brands of department stores? Because they were all targeted towards a different customer - Dayton-Hudson Corp (now known as Target Corp) didn't only have valuable customers at their flagship brand, they had them at all brands - why were they in 3 different segments of the department store business? Because they could earn a reasonable return for their stakeholders even with the overlap that existed

PERSONALY OPINION - note I did not have any prior knowledge and this post is only my personal opinion

Personally when I saw Destination Points being rolled out I knew the divisions time was growing short - IMO there was an exit planned when this was announced but honestly given the economic outlook for vacation properties this certainly made a much larger market for them to sell to (I mean my family owns enough weeks and are unlikely to purchase more - we certainly aren't their target market today)....but with that said I just dont get why folks are angry about Destination Points - it doesn't impact current owners but gosh this entire things really irks my parents...I mean it didn't devalue anything, infact there might end up being a slight premium because you can't purchase weeks anymore

Kind of. Back in the CY Club days, if you made it to the "Gold" Club level, you would receive a couple of suite upgrade coupons and I think 4 free breakfast coupons for every 12 nights you stayed. And what was nice (for me at least) was that Marriott wasn't very good at tracking whether they sent you the coupons or not, so I would almost always get 2 sets if not 3 or more.

So back before Marriott consolidated all their stay programs, I almost always had free breakfast and a suite upgrade when I stayed at a CY.

That analogy only works if we're comparing

Marriott
Courtyard
Fairfield Inn

which we're not doing. We realize the 3 address different segments of the market.

What we're asking is why CY doesn't offer something its direct competitor HGI does - free brekkie - or even, to use your competitive analogy, SHS, which also does. If you've got 2 other brands or chains that offer similar rooms, free brekkie, free i-net (even w/o being elite) & similar price, why would anyone stay at a CY?

What is CY's unique proposition to get biz travelers to stay at them?

Cheers.

I have received a free breakfast at some CYs as part of a corp or govt rate. But since the change to the new Bistro crap (I know that's another thread) who wants it.

I have received a free breakfast at CYs in the past as part of a corp or govt rate, but with the introduction of that Bistro Crap (I know that's another thread) who wants it?

Sharon if you go back and follow the thread my original response which you responded to was in reference to someone else asking if SHS & CY are competitors, they are - competing in this case in the same market space but targeted towards different customers, a very similar strategy to what DH Corp or MayCo did back in the day

Your question is a very different question which has been asked by some others here but one which I have not addressed (until now) - but the basic answer to your question though is because they identify with the brand more so than the other available options, to go a little further with the answer - the brand has done tests via many different methods and continues to believe the addition of breakfast is not prudent at this time

I've had some people ask me why a Westin or Marriott is priced $200 over a Crowne Plaza and "they dont even put Microwaves or Fridge's in the room" - what's important to remember when working in the world of marketing is "what's important to one customer might not be important to another" which is what makes competition so great - we have options and have the ability to chose what works best for us (although closed markets would like to say they also provide options but I much prefer our systems, the differences are more tangible)