Consolidating its market positioning, Preferred Hotel Group moves from being a house of brands to a branded house, says Saurabh Rai, area managing director, South Asia & Middle East.
BY BABITA KRISHNAN
Preferred Hotel Group, a global provider of sales, marketing and distribution services to independent luxury hotels, moved from a multi-brand business model to one master brand – Preferred Hotels & Resorts. “In a time when seemingly every hotel company is introduciung new brands that target specific demographics, we are doing the opposite by transitioning from a house of brands to a branded house,” said Lindsey Ueberroth, president & CEO, announcing the rebranding in March this year.
Expounding on this, Saurabh Rai, area managing director, South Asia & Middle East, for the brand, says, “I guess the biggest shift that has happened in our industry globally is the power that has in absolute terms moved to the end consumers. So as committed as we are in terms of preserving our B2B equity that we have etched over decades, our commitment to have a much clearer, stronger and a more focused connect with the end consumer is also equally strong.” Keeping in mind that the consumer is fickle and short on time and attention, the group realised that there was a need for ‘singularisation’ to make a quick and deep impact on the minds of the consumer. In its new avatar, the brand stands for best in class independent hotels worldwide through its five global collections – Legend, LVX, Lifestyle, Connect and Preferred Residences.
These five collections, spread over 650 hotels worldwide, within the brand have converged under one umbrella and one website, “We are trying to, very singularly and clearly, communicate with our patrons and this syncs beautifully with iPrefer which is our guest loyalty programme,” says Rai. And shares the fact that the brand did not lose a single hotel during the transition, which shows that the hotel owner embracement of the rebranding exercise has been phenomenal and absolute.
This multi-million dollar investment has been kept in line with the marketing programmes that the brand works out for each one of its partner hotels that have to be B2C oriented in terms of their campaigns. While working with the trade partners, the offerings are meant for the guest benefits in addition to the iPrefer rewards – that has in the last 18 months been converted into a rewards-based loyalty programme. “Hotels are seeing great engagement from members. It was the first of its kind in the independent hotel space when we started the programme. It’s a great way for a consumer to connect with our member hotels which are so unique in their characteristics. It’s not a cookie cutter structure. So having independent hotels and also being able to earn points I think is a great deal for consumers and that’s the reason we are seeing success in the programme for both leisure and corporate travellers,” Rai explains.
There has been a decided shift in focus as part of the rebranding for Preferred Hotels & Resorts in terms of the campaigns. “We are trying to become more consumer-oriented, consumer-focused and communicate better with them keeping simplicity as the essence. Thus, our ad campaign is actually now more about how a consumer would look at our hotels rather than how we or our partners would want to showcase the hotels. Our current campaign is windows to the world that is about views that you see from the rooms when you stay at our member hotels,” reveals Rai drawing a parallel with the iPhone campaign that has consumer-generated content. It is moving away from buildings, F&B, rooms, etc. to actually becoming consumer connected. It is a complete change of focus when it comes to the way the brand is presenting itself internally and externally now. “It is about how does the stay becomes a complete experience that the user is looking for and that’s going to be our focus. You can’t be sales pushy about it,” he says.
On the role of social media, Rai acknowledges its omnipresence and reveals the plans to use it extensively in the near future. “The important thing is for hotels not to try to take control in their hands; they should have the confidence of letting the control rest with the users. There is a thin line of distinction between being on social media and being actively user-engaged by blasting out your own content. The other approach that is working today is to be actively engaged and have the constructive engagement coming from the consumer. So you have to just put that ignition spark that creates a fire that loops in all the users and gets them to talk,” he says.
A proprietary tool called integrated quality assurance allows the member hotels to be able to actively engage with consumers on social platforms. This helps the GMs to monitor the performance of each department based on the consumer feedback.
The brand also has a ‘collection criteria’ for each hotel, which has scores based on the consumer engagement. “The hotels need to maintain certain scores and quality assurance and really to be able to stay in the A-list,” Rai explains. The quality assurance is a real -Time consumer score on the top social media platforms including Trip Advisor, Facebook, Agodabooking.com, Yahoo Travel Blog and Meta search sites like Kayak, etc. or any of the important portals that permit user feedback to come through. “We aggregate the feedback and put scores for each property – five guest-experience touch points and competitors are identified by the hotels themselves as benchmarks for this. This is a consumer-generated content and every time we engage with a hotel, we have a IQF dashboard for our products. This dashboard allows you a period over period comparison as well,” he says.
But why would a brand choose Preferred Hotels & Resorts over another well established chain? “This is a lucrative space, especially in mature hotel markets. But it is the owner’s choice as he is at a vantage point of being able to assess his benefit. At Preferred Hotels & Resorts, we are committed to what’s important to the hotel/hotel owner,” elucidates Rai. There are only two things of primary importance to a hotel owner: operating profitability and asset valuation. The business model and engagement format of the brand is conditioned on these two criteria. “Our team structure enables us to engage with the hotel; and our consultative ability on sales, marketing, PR, revenue management, distribution, quality assurance, etc. is all about operating profitability. Increasing operational efficiency either by increasing top line or reducing cost, both results in direct operating margin expansion,” he elaborates.
One asset that Rai is most proud of is their human resource. He feels that as a global partner, they should be able to add value to the property through the quality of their human resource capabilities that activates and facilitates a global level support for independent brands that impacts the operating profit. On the asset valuation aspect, Rai explains that everything that Preferred Hotels & Resorts does in sales, marketing, PR, international brand showcasing, etc., is to showcase the member hotels and their brands. “So everything in terms of goodwill and brand value in books, belongs to the members, and is directly connected to asset valuation,” he says.
Though the brand was always concerned with consumer focus but not done much there, the rebranding became a perfect conduit of addressing this key challenge. Crediting the owners, the Uberroth family, with keeping the perspective of the company fresh, encouraging the team and being totally pragmatic in keeping with what’s happening in the industry globally, Rai believes that this is the reason why the company has managed to stay very current and fresh in its business model for hotel owners.
