James Luckard

The Sheraton Grand Sukhumvit is one of four legacy hotels in The Luxury Collection which date back to the days of the "ITT Sheraton Luxury Collection". In the 1990s it was a line of the fancier hotels in the Sheraton chain. It grew exponentially when ITT Sheraton bought the CIGA chain of European luxury hotels in the 90s and placed almost all of those hotels in the ITT Sheraton Luxury Collection.

Starwood chose to make The Luxury Collection a completely separate brand, and they have built it up by signing scores of independent hotels. They have weeded out almost all the hotels in the Luxury Collection that have "Sheraton" in their names, either renaming them, moving them to the normal Sheraton brand, or dropping them entirely. Only Addis, Kuwait, Algarve and Sukhumvit remain. I suspect it's due to long-term contracts for use of the Sheraton name. Strangely Algarve and Sukhumvit were both recently renovated, which would have been a perfect time to drop the Sheraton names, but they didn't.

Dr. HFH

Thanks for the info, James Luckard. Brings back fond memories of the 1960s and 1970s when ITT pretty much operated as its own independent government, particularly in South and Central America.

bhrubin

There happens to be a few Sheratons which are part of the Luxury Collection and not officially part of the Sheraton brand for promotions. It's not that complicated. Exceptions exist in our world. Please stop whining about it already.

James Luckard

Glad to help. It's a very confusing situation I'm sure Starwood would love to fix it, but I'll bet it's all down to contracts that can't change. Putting one of the legacy hotels into this new sub-brand is only going to increase confusion though. Unless you're aware of Sheraton's history in the ITT days, there's not much logic to Sheratons that aren't Sheratons.

Dr. HFH

There's also the argument that says that this branding stuff is of far more consequence to corporate and to shareholders than to guests, who care primarily about their experience at a hotel rather than what the sign out front says (as long as they're getting their SPG bennies!).

James Luckard

True, I'll bet the vast majority of people who stay at the Sheraton Grand Sukhumvit and the other three hotels have no idea they aren't actually Sheratons.

ajnaro

There are a few Westin Grands around as well: Cape Town, Berlin, Vancouver, etc.

James Luckard

The Berlin hotel has that name because it used to be the Grand Hotel Berlin. And the Cape Town hotel dropped the word Grand from its name a few years back. There are other hotels called Westin Grand in Munich, Frankfurt and Vancouver. They're just a coincidence though, not a specific sub-branding.

MSPeconomist

This is going to be confusing too: Grand in the name of Sheratons usually means something special, except possibly when the Sheraton isn't a Sheraton, but Grand in the name of a Westin means nothing at all.

ajnaro

The Cape Town hotel may be a coincidence too, as it was founded under the ArabellaSheraton Grand name. As I have been a guest at the hotel since its opening, it certainly does SEEM to have become less 'grand' over the years. Originally it offered butler service, quality amenities, and attentive service. Now it seems more like a good business and convention hotel.

UA-NYC

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sherat...130200912.html

Chicago...meh. Can't speak to Phoenix.

Wonder if renovations are a mandatory if you get the designation?

mbaker0936

In Phoenix I believe some rooms were under renovation on the upper floors when I was there earlier this year. It is a very large property close to everything. The pool area is my favorite and the lobby to me is just amazing! Glad to see this one get picked!

KENNECTED

I bet the execution of this will go smoothly......NOT!

UA-NYC

I bet it just gets stopped pretty quickly assuming the merger moves forward. Why create a 31st brand?

factory81

Haha. I am staying at the Royal Palm tomorrow, the first Tribute property, which just converted to SPG earlier this year.

I have stayed at the Sheraton in Chicago last year, I stayed there over Halloween this year. And I will be there in 2 weeks - which will be the first time it shows up as a Sheraton Grand in my SPG App (it already reflects this).

I am wondering what will be more grand about it? The Loews next door looks pretty grand