Example the characteristics of European hotel groups~~

Brand Management Strategy Choice Hotels International, ranked fifth among the top 300 hotel groups in the world in 2001, is a typical hotel group that has grown rapidly mainly relying on brand management strategies. In just over 20 years, it has achieved rapid expansion of its global market scale and increasing brand value mainly through brand management strategies such as brand franchising, multi-product brand portfolio, and brand marketing. As of September 2004, Boutique International, which owns 8 brands, has opened more than 5,000 hotels in 43 countries around the world, with more than 440,000 guest rooms; its business scope ranges from economical consumption, mid-range consumption to high-end luxury consumption. The services are all-encompassing; the service targets include business travelers, vacation travelers, mass tourists, family travelers, freelancers and other people from all walks of life. The Northwest Commercial Travelers Association of Canada awarded it the "Best Hotel Chain of the Year" for three consecutive years. In 1998, Consumer Reports named its Sleep Inn brand the best budget hotel chain in the United States. Success magazine named the other two The brands - Comfort and Quality - are listed as one of the best brand operators. Boutique International's great success in brand management shows that brand management has become one of the important tools in hotel market competition. A brand is a name, term, logo, design or a combination thereof, the purpose of which is to identify a seller or seller's products or services and to differentiate them from those of competitors; brand Operation refers to the basic situation of an enterprise in response to market demand, with the corporate philosophy as the core, the brand as a means, and various operating methods such as brand marketing, brand promotion, and brand asset management to achieve the ultimate goal of maximizing corporate interests. The advantages of brand management enhance customer loyalty and form differentiated competitive advantages. Hotel products are intangible services provided to guests with the help of certain facilities. They do not have the tangible characteristics of physical products, and the consumption of hotel products by guests is an integral part of the service process. An experience characterized by diversity. Due to the characteristics of hotel products and the existence of market information asymmetry, customers are more random when choosing hotel products, which is an unfavorable factor for hotels to occupy the target market and expand market share. The brand of a hotel group can establish a good corporate and product image in the minds of consumers, enhance their awareness of the hotel's intangible products, and encourage customers to choose to purchase them first. Once a customer recognizes a certain hotel product brand, the next step is to When choosing hotel products for the first time, customers will choose the same hotel brand to reduce purchase costs and risks, and repeated consumption experiences will form habitual consumption, making them eventually become loyal customers of this brand. Increased customer loyalty will help hotel groups attract repeat customers and increase market share. Brands reflect the differences and characteristics of hotel service products. If the service personality value embodied by a brand is recognized by a customer group that is consistent with its identity, emotions, and preferences, then its loyalty to the brand will be irreplaceable. Therefore, personalized brands will help hotel groups form differentiated comparative competitive advantages, thereby more effectively occupying different market segments. Accelerating the group's expansion and forming industrial aggregation advantages. Brand management is one of the important and effective means for hotel groups to accelerate their expansion. It can enable hotel groups to get rid of geographical restrictions, expand development space, expand market scale, and expand market coverage with brands, thus promoting hotel groups. Take the road of large-scale operation and rapid expansion. Its main form is franchising. Hotel groups quickly achieve group expansion through the transfer and franchise of intangible assets such as management models, business concepts, trademarks and brands. The expansion of the group's scale and strength will put it in an advantageous position in market competition. On the one hand, it can accelerate the group's expansion faster, and on the other hand, it can attract more business partners to establish good cooperative relations with it and enhance its The market's ability to resist risks will lead to a virtuous cycle of development. Promote industrial extension and form diversified business advantages. Brand management has the advantage of deferred brand value. Hotel groups can borrow the image and reputation of successful brands in the minds of customers and use the original brand name for new product series or enter new industry fields. Consumers and the public will use this kind of information out of trust and preference for successful brands. Brand loyalty extends to new products, increasing the chances of new products achieving market success, thereby promoting the hotel group to quickly form a product diversification or industry diversification business structure. For example, the Accor Group targets different hotel market segments such as luxury, mid-range, and economy. It has extended Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, Ibis and other brands under the Accor brand to achieve the purpose of clarifying product positioning and effectively occupying different market segments. . The basic model of brand management is the single brand management model. The single brand management model is that the hotel group uses the same brand name for all hotel products it produces and operates. Its advantage is that it can concentrate the financial and material resources of the enterprise to create a single brand, which is conducive to accurately conveying the unified corporate philosophy. Company philosophy and business philosophy; its disadvantage is that it is not compatible with various grades of hotel products, resulting in a blurred product image. Foreign hotel groups mainly use corporate brands when using a single brand management model, that is, directly using the hotel group's company name as the product brand name.

This method is mainly suitable for hotel groups that implement target agglomeration strategies. For example, Canada's Four Seasons Hotel Group positions its target market as the global high-end hotel consumer group. Therefore, it uses the company's brand strategy to clearly reflect the product positioning of luxury hotels, thereby making it It has gained a high market share in the global luxury hotel market. Multi-brand portfolio business model The multi-brand portfolio business model is a hotel group that, under the guidance of the same corporate mission and business philosophy, gives different brand names to its products in different market segments. It mainly has the following three types: 1. Independent product brand portfolio Independent product brand portfolio means that the hotel group names each hotel product it operates with its own independent brand, and each brand is targeted at the personality of a specific market segment. "Tailor-made" to achieve clear differences in product levels and functions; its disadvantage is the lack of a unified corporate image. Too many brands can easily cause the dispersion of marketing resources, which is not conducive to the formation of famous brands. In this regard, Sundart Hotel Group, the world's leader in hotel groups, is a successful example. It has launched the Howard Johnson and Knight Inn brands for different hotel market segments such as luxury, mid-range, and economy. , Tiantian Inn brand and other independent product brands, the accurate product image positioning enables it to maintain a high market share in various market segments. 2. Classified brand portfolio Classified brand portfolio means that the hotel group classifies the various hotel products it operates according to a certain standard, and labels each category of products with its own independent brand. The advantage of this combination is that it not only overcomes the shortcomings of ambiguous brand positioning caused by a single brand combination business model, but also overcomes the shortcomings of high marketing costs and difficulty in management caused by independent brand combinations. For example, Sundart Hotel Group's Howard Johnson brand consists of Howard Johnson Express Inns, Howard Johnson Plaza-Hotels, Howard Johnson Hotels, and Howard Johnson Inns. (Howard Johnson Inns) consists of four different brands of the same type. 3. Mother-child brand combination Mother-child brand combination refers to the hotel group branding its hotel products with two brands, namely "parent brand + child brand". The mother brand represents the overall image of the group, conveys the company's business philosophy, and provides credibility guarantee for the child brands. ; Sub-brands add personality and vitality to the parent brand, enrich connotation, and enhance value support. The Hyatt Hotel Group is a typical representative of this kind of brand combination. The hotel parent brand "Hyatt" shows customers the high-quality overall image of the group's products, while the sub-brands (such as Grand Hotels, Park Hotels, Regency Hotels) focus on hotel grades and service features. Provide customers with different personalized services and value experiences in other aspects, enriching and enhancing the image of the parent brand. The above brand management methods each have different advantages and disadvantages. When applying them, hotel groups must appropriately choose a brand management model that suits their actual situation based on their respective company missions and business strategies. Capital operation strategy Capital operation, as a successful business model of the foreign hotel industry, has been introduced into my country for more than 20 years. It has played a positive role as a "catalyst" in the rapid development of the hotel industry in my country. Although my country's hotel industry has gone through the embryonic stage characterized by a single joint venture in terms of capital operation and the initial stage in which a small number of hotel companies tried to use multiple capital operation methods in a small area, this has not yet been implemented on a large scale in the entire industry. One business model. After joining the WTO, the entry of international capital has brought about a series of challenges, and against the background that my country's hotel industry as a whole is in a state of meager profits or even losses, learning from the successful capital operation models of foreign hotel groups is of great significance to improving the overall operating performance and international competitiveness of my country's hotel industry. . With the strengthening of the trend of global economic integration, the new round of mergers and acquisitions by world hotel groups focusing on competing for the global market has become more and more intense. Throughout the development history of world-famous hotel groups, they generally achieved rapid cross-regional expansion through capital operations such as mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations. For example, in 1953, Kaymons Wilson, the founder of the Holiday Inn Hotel Group, pioneered the "franchising" of hotel groups. By 1957, 18 franchise rights were sold, realizing the initial success of franchising in the expansion of hotel groups. Since then, Hilton, Sheraton This method was introduced to quickly realize the group's low-cost, high-profit expansion; in the 1960s, Hilton Hotel Group pioneered the "management contract" operating method. In 1964, it was successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the first listed group company in the world's hotel industry. , in its annual financial report in 1998, it officially stated that "the company focuses on operating the hotel industry and expands the number of hotels owned by the group through mergers, purchases, chain operations, etc."; in order to enter the world's luxury hotel market, the British Ford Hotel Group acquired Meridian in 1994 The hotel group (Le Meridien) quickly accelerated its pace of global expansion. In 1995, it sold 490 hotels in the Travel Inn chain in the United States in order to concentrate on operating the Meridian brand. The above examples illustrate the fact that capital operation is one of the important operating methods for hotel groups to optimize the allocation of corporate resources to maximize corporate profits or maximize capital appreciation. Capital refers to the value that can continuously increase in value during movement. This value is expressed as the currency advanced by the hotel to carry out service operations.

Hotel capital operation means that the hotel aims to pursue maximum profits or maximum capital appreciation, is characterized by value management, regards all tangible and intangible social resources and production factors owned by the hotel as value capital that can be operated, and saves money through economies of scale. expenditure. Over the past few years, hotel suppliers have had the upper hand in supply and demand in the luxury upscale segment. As a result, Starwood Hotels has gained many opportunities to optimize the allocation of hotel capital and production factors and dynamically adjust the industrial structure to achieve capital appreciation through various methods such as circulation, acquisitions, mergers, reorganizations, equity participation, holdings, transactions, transfers, and leasing. a business management model. The ultimate business goal of a hotel group is to maximize profits and cash flow. In order to achieve this goal, Starwood has taken the following measures: increase the profits of existing hotels and casinos; selectively purchase new hotels; increase the number of group hotel operating contracts and franchise agreements. In order to increase revenue, Starwood Group has made a balanced and effective allocation of its global assets, expanded customer source markets and other resources, and greatly increased the average daily room rate (ADR, Average daily rate) through income. This is mainly through the use of high This is achieved by replacing products with discounts with products at lower price points and selectively raising room prices. The following is a brief introduction to the specific operation and management strategies of the Group. 1. Internal development opportunities. The joining of ITT and Worldwide Assets and Operations to Starwood's traditional hotel business provides Starwood Hotels with huge opportunities to increase the overall market share, reputation and scale of the combined company, thus enhancing the company's hotels. and casino operating efficiency. Below are internal development opportunities that can increase the Group's operating efficiency and profitability. (1) Revise the market positioning of the group’s brand to further enhance its brand awareness. By changing the brands of some group-owned hotels to Sheraton, Worldwide, Four Points or the new St. Regis, Starwood Hotels further expands the prestige and market share of its brands, thereby increasing the average number of available rooms. revenue and improve operating efficiency. (2) Expand the scope of Starwood Hotels as a third-party hotel manager, which can expand the influence and market strength of the Starwood Hotels brand and obtain more cash with less investment. (3) Franchise the brands of Sheraton, St. Regis, Worldwide and Four Points to selected third-party operators, thereby expanding the market share of the group's hotels and increasing the popularity of its hotel brands, and the franchise fees will be reduced. Allow the company to earn more revenue. (4) Integrate the group's owned, managed, and franchised hotels into a single, multi-brand reservation system, coordinate global sales departments, and increase the group's Internet information dissemination, influence, and sales capabilities. Increase revenue and profits, and improve service quality. (5) Implement the group's frequent guest program. The group believes that this program will help the hotel increase its room occupancy rate, and guests who stay in the hotel and come to the casino for entertainment will also benefit from it. On February 3, 1999, Starwood Hotel Group launched a group-wide "hotel frequent guest program" called "Starwood Preferred Guest". "Frequent flyer programs" are nothing new in the travel industry. About 20 years ago, the airline industry first launched the "frequent flyer program" to reward business travelers who were loyal to the company. However, Starwood's frequent guest program is proposed in a form that is significantly different from other hotel programs. Its slogan is "a frequent guest program with unparalleled competitive advantages" and it is ambitious to compete with other frequent guest reward programs. Business travelers who participate in the program can earn points and redeem rewards by staying at the group's 550 hotels and resorts in 60 countries. The existing "hotel frequent guest program" is often too cumbersome and turns off the appetite of many guests. Starwood's new program learns from its experience and simplifies it. Guests can earn two points for every dollar they spend at the hotel. As for rewards, guests have two options, one is free accommodation, the other is converted into miles - Starwood cooperates with 20 airlines, so two points can be converted into one mile. The hotel's bonus also includes check-in at any time with no restrictions, including during the hotel's peak season. This program has achieved great success as soon as it was implemented. In April, the registration and registration rate of Huanding and Sheraton hotels increased four times compared with the same period last year. It won many awards in its first year, winning five of the nine highest honors. It was named the Best Hotel Frequency Program of 1999 by the Freddie Awards, and was also awarded "Best Customer Service," "Best Website," "Best Upper Level Customer Program," and "Best Implementation of Rewards Program." In addition, Starwood's "Starwood Guest" program was hailed as the best hotel reward program by "USA Today". (6) By comprehensively organizing the database of all the group's own guests, we will strengthen marketing efforts, promote more products to existing customers, increase room occupancy rates, and create new marketing opportunities. (7) To optimize the group's use of its real estate ownership and thereby increase ancillary income, such as from operating the restaurants, bars and parking lots in the group's hotels and casinos. (8) Create a new "W" hotel brand to satisfy business guests who require high-end service standards and other guests who have demand for small hotels that provide full-service services in major source markets.

The first W Hotel was opened in New York in December 1998, with plans to build more W Hotels in San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles and New Orleans. 2. Seek external development opportunities. Starwood Hotels continues to seek opportunities to expand and diversify the group's hotel and casino portfolio. Its main approach is to make small investments or selective acquisitions of properties in the United States and abroad that meet all or part of the group's requirements. The standards set by Starwood Hotels are as follows: (1) Luxurious, upscale, full-service hotels located in major metropolitan or commercial centers. (2) Major tourist hotels, resorts or conference centers must also meet the following conditions: the customer source market is in good development, the local market has significant industry barriers, or it is located in an area with strong demand for guest rooms, such as office buildings or Retail mall meeting points, airports, tourist attractions or university areas. (3) Hotels with untapped potential can be fully developed through the following channels: changing brands and bringing them under the group's own hotel brands; introducing more professional and efficient management techniques and methods; and/or investing Funds to innovate, expand or reposition the hotel. (4) Hotel groups or hotel groups that meet some or all of the above criteria. The premise is that purchasing several hotels at one time can allow Starwood Group to obtain better prices or obtain attractive properties that are not available through other means.

In addition, Starwood Group also expands its casino business by expanding the Caesars brand around the world, and selectively develops and builds valuable hotels and casinos to help the Group achieve its strategic goals. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide signed 112 management and licensing agreements in 1999, exceeding the planned target by 12 percentage points. Starwood won a hotly contested bid to manage several hotels under construction at the Boston Convention Center, including a 1,120-room Sheraton Hotel and a newly constructed W Hotel in Union City, New York City. Plaza's GUARDIAN LIFE building, and an international W hotel in Sydney, Australia. In addition, many of the world's top well-known hotels have also joined the Starwood name, including the original ESSEX HOUSE hotel in New York City, which has now been renamed the Grand Hotel; the former President Wesson Hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, has been renamed the Grand Selected hotels. In addition to the 112 new agreements, there are also 30 other management contracts, some of which have expired, some have been transferred to third parties, and have been renewed by Starwood Group. In this way, Starwood has retained its three most representative hotels, namely the Century Plaza in Los Angeles; the Sheraton Park Castle in London and the Sheraton Frankfurt in Germany. Through the global expansion process in 1999, Starwood signed 53 new stores in North America; 28 new stores in Africa, India and the Middle East; 13 stores in Europe; and 12 stores in Asia Pacific and Latin America. 3. Integration and innovation of hotel management methods. The current combination of the Group's traditional business methods with those of Worldwide and ITT Group has created many opportunities for long-term cost savings for the Group. For example, supporting spending on procurement and insurance through economies of scale and eliminating unnecessary duplication in routine matters and management. The integration of operating methods also creates the opportunity for the group to adopt a comprehensive frequent guest program and reservation system, and improve operating efficiency by promoting the operating methods of a certain brand hotel in all hotels, such as integrating Worldwide, Sheraton or other hotels in the group. The hotel's "best practices" are promoted throughout the group. At the same time, Starwood continues to adopt bold and innovative business management concepts and has the courage to explore new markets. This is mainly reflected in the application of the Internet and the introduction of new management and service concepts in various brand hotels. The commercial application of the Internet started in 1995 and has developed rapidly in recent years. The hotel industry's use of the Internet is becoming increasingly widespread. However, for online retailers, the most common phenomenon is that operations are still at a loss. But now many hotel groups have begun to profit from it, Starwood is a representative. As early as July 1996, Starwood Group established its own website and has entered the profit stage. In 1996, the amount of online room reservations was US$1 million. In 1997, the industry continued to rise: 10 million in 1997, 25 million in 1998, and approximately US$100 million in 1999. Such great success is mainly due to Starwood's continuous adjustments to the website to adapt to changes in actual and potential user needs, making it easier for users to conduct travel inquiries about destinations when using the system. Users originally only wanted information about the hotel, but now they want to have a more realistic feel about the hotel's surroundings and its location at the destination. There are many real-life pictures on Starwood's website, and it also provides visitors with virtual reality tours of the hotel, giving users a more realistic experience. To better serve travelers whose first choice is destination, Starwood has redesigned its homepage. Once users log into the site, they see a map of the world and, by clicking on their favorite destination, they can find Starwood hotels built in that area. At the same time, in order to maintain consistency with the standard brand strategy, the lower end of the homepage also has obvious logos of each Starwood hotel brand, which can be directly clicked to enter the query. This is convenient for loyal guests who are keen to participate in the Brand Loyalty Program (Brand Loyalty Program). usage of.

Expanding the breadth of the network, organizing and classifying videos of hotels and destinations, and providing ancillary services all involve increases in costs, which double every year. Therefore, in order to reduce costs, Starwood emphasizes cooperation with professional network companies and limits its work to areas that it is specialized in and must control. This keeps the cost of online booking at the same level as other booking methods, and the cost of online booking is declining year by year. Sheraton Hotels' methods in hotel operations and human resource management are consistently recognized as best practices by the Cornell Hotel College. Each year the Elk Grove Sheraton Hotel implements a new practice to improve financial viability and guest and employee satisfaction. The hotel's Hospitality Committee searches for, identifies and implements a new, inclusive business plan. Each member of the Hospitality Committee is responsible for implementing an important program in the program. The Sheraton-Denver West Hotel in Denver (Sheraton-Denver West) pioneered in personnel management by having two sales managers occupy the same full-time position. The advantage of this is that the cost of hiring one employee is to explore the management talents of two employees and make full use of their energy and skills. The actual operation is to discover the management talents of employees and give them a 90-day probation period to demonstrate their talents. During this period, employees are paid on an hourly basis. Starwood also spares no expense when it comes to improving customer satisfaction. Entrusted by the Grand Hotel, Guideline Research conducted a study on 600 business travelers and concluded that the best service a hotel can provide is a good night's sleep. Based on this information, Starwood spent a year researching and designing a new bed. To install this new bed in all hotels, the total cost would be US$30 million. Starwood's managers selected 50 types of beds from 35 hotel chains and placed them in the lobby for comparative testing. As a result, the "heavenly bed" from the World Hotel was chosen. As of August 1999, Huanding Hotel had installed 10,000 such beds in 7,400 rooms in 20 hotels, allowing its customers to enjoy a "paradise" sleep. Holiday Marketing At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, catering sales in major hotels have entered a golden period. Festivals such as Christmas, New Year, Spring Festival, and Valentine’s Day have become the best times for consumers to spend intensively. Major hotels have formulated various marketing plans and tried their best to attract customers in order to take advantage of the last opportunity of the year to improve efficiency and get the work in 2005 off to a good start. Looking at the implementation of catering marketing work over the years, we can find that today's catering marketing planning seems to have entered a misunderstanding, that is: festival marketing is to organize activities, each company launches activities, and the prizes are becoming more and more bizarre, and they have even developed to Spending tens of thousands of dollars on computers, travel, etc., these activities will undoubtedly produce miraculous results when held. The hotel is booming for a while and full of guests, but once the event is over, it immediately becomes deserted. Similar situations are very common everywhere. Here it is necessary to study the market rules, put forward a marketing plan that meets market needs, and lay a solid foundation for the hotel's operations in the next year from the perspective of long-term development. The following discusses the main strategies for holiday catering marketing from six aspects. 1. According to the different composition of the customer source market, carry out product integration and launch product combinations that meet market demand. Catering marketing, in the final analysis, is marketing the hotel’s main products, that is, the hotel’s dishes, drinks, services, and intangible brands and culture. During holidays, the main source of customers for hotels, whether it is star-rated hotels or small roadside restaurants, socialized mass consumption will become the mainstream. Family dining and gatherings of relatives and friends are the main source of customers at this stage. Then the hotel's products should mainly meet the needs of this type of guests. The dishes should be light in taste, suitable for all ages, large in quantity, and moderately priced. The hotel should also launch banquets of all levels in a timely manner, with special dishes and signature dishes interspersed here. , new dishes, etc., so that consumers can fully understand the level of the hotel's chefs, and promote the establishment and promotion of the hotel's image and brand. This is the main purpose of festival marketing and is also a theme item in many catering events. 2. Marketing activities are required to have prominent themes and distinctive cultural characteristics. The organization of marketing activities is the main manifestation of holiday marketing and the main way to create a festive atmosphere. Due to the different backgrounds of these festivals, the distinctive differences between Chinese and Western cultures need to be revealed in the process of marketing activities. For example, there should be differences in the layout of the restaurant, the design of the dining table, the printing of the menu, the background music and lighting, and the content of the activities. In this regard, the practices of many hotels are worth advocating. During the Christmas period, various activities include Christmas tree decoration, Santa Claus distributing gifts, children's choir performances and other activities; during the New Year and Spring Festival, activities such as hanging red lanterns, pasting the word "福" upside down, counting down the clock in the early morning, and issuing lucky red envelopes are the main activities. On Valentine's Day, roses, chocolates, candlelight dinners, violin accompaniments, etc. are used as the main marketing expressions. In the process of this series of activities, we must grasp the principles of "authenticity" and "original flavor".