Devaluation of Courtyard
 

I recall a time when the Courtyard chain was second to Marriott (prior to JW and Renaissance) for the business traveler. Prices were higher than Springhill, Residence Inn, and Fairfield. The decline of the brand and the recent fiascos with the 'upgrades' of the lobby and bistro breakfast (in addition to no significant benefits for Gold/platinum members) options appear to not be helping. In my recent searches for rooms in an area, the Courtyards are usally priced lower than all other Marriott brands. Something isn't working!

It is really a shame that they have screwed up this brand because the original business traveller concept was well ahead of its time.

Marriott does have a lot of brands, and sometimes it's a blur in the US.
IMHO; I like the Courtyards in asia, the lounges are open 7 days a week for breakfast.

The beds and bedding at Courtyard are the absolute worst, in my opinion.

The Owners are not Happy
 

Was in an "old" courtyard and was talking to the front desk about the lobby.
She said that they are trying to hold out as long as they can.
She was keeping a tally of all the elite who had mentioned how much they liked the old lobby and hated the new one.

I agree completely. My initial loyalty to the Marriott brands started with the Courtyard Hotels nealry 20 years ago. I started to become dissapointed in several of my stays when the brand started to become inconsistent about 2005. Although I try to be loyal to Marriott due to Marriott Rewards, I have found my myslef being more satified with the improved Hilton Garden Inns; this is particularly the case when I bench-mark Hilton Garden Inn full breakfast options versus Courtyard Bistro breakfast; I also found the old lobbies to be more comofrtable, even though the decor as getting quote dated.

I am pleased to say that I the Marriott Hotel brand has not lost its luster, and is possibly better than it was 10 years ago; I am also deligehtd with the J.W. Marriotts, but my budget only allows for the JW's on an infrequent basis.

I don't find them too bad - as stated, the international properties are way better.

Honestly, CY varies huge from property to property. The key is to get a recently renovated property. The only way to know is to check here / tripadvisor and see...

I'm SPG plat too, and let me tell you that CYs are WAY BETTER than Sheraton Four Points.

Also, "devalue" is the wrong word here. You can devalue a currency (like the dollar... or... a MR point), but if you think they have gone downhill, well then they have just gone downhill...

+1.

You might marvel at the new JW, & Courtyard in Hangzhou. they are in the 'same' building, separate towers, only a lobby door separates the two hotels.
The Crt is 16 floors, & the JW is 26 floors. Interesting that both have lounges open 7 days a week.

the owners aren't happy with the costs of the renovation - but they love the increase in RevPAR....unfortunately you can't have one without the other

What's interesting here is that MI isn't forcing CY's to change to the new lobby - that is coming from the Courtyard Franchise Advisory Council which consists of franchise represetatives (sure Marriott has a say but the franchise community has final word on what happens on major items such as this, if a brand doesn't continue to improve theirself they will be stuck behind as the compset continues to improve theirself, think back 30 years ago when CY was first introduced - started an entire new segment but these days you have many different brands in this segment - you need to keep it fresh...what's really interesting is a friend was the chairman of the FAC when this was introduced, both MI and the FAC were concerned about the brand's brand image becoming tired, they didn't want to go as far as aloft and I think they did a decent job with it (more Hyatt Place I'd say) IMO the brand that needs to worry now about feeling "old" is Hilton Garden)

If CY is intended for business travelers, I don't understand why they withhold benefits from Golds/Plats - both with respect to other Marriott brands and with respect to HGI, the brand that I believe they'd consider their most direct competitor.

(Aloft isn't really targeted at business travelers and Element isn't rolled out in enough places to make Courtyard care too much.)

Anyway, I've never been a big CY fan because of that...but I certainly have been lured to them in the past year because of the room rates. When CY is $44/nt. and SHS/FI are $70, it's hard to pass up CY. (These are North Dallas rates - and there are sometimes five or 6 sub-$50 CY's within 10-15 minutes' drive of each other.)

I for one like the lobby and bistro. The CY in Plano lets Plats draw a "bonus" gift out of a basket: sometimes it's an appetizer, sometimes a breakfast sandwich, sometimes simply extra welcome amenity points. I've enjoyed the food items when I've received them - they aren't bad at all.

Although it is interesting to note: of this cadre of very low-priced Courtyards, only the Plano one has the new lobby. There are also many other CY's in suburban Dallas that don't have rates so low...I think a few more of them have the upgraded lobby.

What specific problems do people have with the new lobby? Breakfast isn't that important to me so the only real gripe I have is that they remove the self service coffee station in favor of the offerings from the bistro.

I do like the option of getting decent hot food at night. A lot of the CYs I stay at are fairly isolated and you can only do delivery so many times.....

You can devalue a brand (such as "Courtyard") as well, by damaging its image or reducing its perceived quality, thus reducing the value that customers are willing to pay for the name.

Well breakfast is real important to me, as a competitive bodybuilder in my "other life" getting a cooked to order egg white omelette and some clean carbs like oatmeal is super important to me. With the old lobby that was never a problem but with the new lobby, well its basically a McDonalds fast food breakfast!

Needess to say no more Courtyards for me!

Worldspan

I expense the meals but it is sometimes limit to $50 per day. If I have to pay for breakfast at the Bistro, I have to be more carefully with my expenses when staying at CY. Therefore, I will only stay at CY when there is no other choice.

There are some places where there's only a CY and a FI. I stay on gvt rate most of the time so price is not really important. The FI will have free breakfast but no gym and/or nice rooms. The CY will have a better look/feel and gym but no free food. Even so, most times we pick the FI because of the free breakfast. I think CY is losing a lot on this.

That's true, but I think overall Marriott believes that the new lobbies increase the value of the brand.

In fact, I sort of take the fact that they aren't targeting the Golds/Plats from the Marriott Rewards system at large in their primary segment to mean that they're very, very successful in segments that are, shall we say, not Flyertalkers. :)

What that segment is or why they're so successful there, I don't know.