he hotel industry began segmenting its
product many years ago, creating brands to reach various subsets of
the traveling public.
As a result of segmentation, it became increasingly difficult to
identify all the different brands and to figure out how to
categorize them in terms of the markets they sought.
It turns out that Smith Travel Research, one of the leading
hotel industry research and consulting firm, has put hotel brands
into categories.
The five categories are: Upper Upscale, Upscale, Midscale with
F&B (food & beverage), Midscale without F&B and
Economy.
The company then placed hotel brands into a grid using these
categories.
The result is an overview of the complex structure of the hotel
industry and an illustration of how difficult it can be for
consumers and the trade to sort out hotel brands.
Some hotel brands fall into more than one category. For example,
Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Select are in the "midscale with
F&B" group but Holiday Inn Express is in the "midscale without
F&B" category.
Hilton falls into the "upper upscale" group but Hilton Garden
Inn and Hilton Inn are a notch down in "upscale." Similarly,
Wyndham and Wyndham Grand Bay are "upper upscale" but Wyndham
Garden is just "upscale.
Finding the dividing lines between categories is a tricky
exercise. Perhaps the simplest way to do it is by average room
rate.
By that measurement, even so-called "all suite" hotels would
fall into different groupings.
For example, Embassy Suites is in "upper upscale" but
AmeriSuites is in "upscale."
One of the more useful benefits of the Smith classifications is
in helping consumers and agents distinguish between hotels with
food and those without it.
In drawing that line, Smith excludes the continental breakfasts
that are served in many hotels that don't have kitchens or room
service.
Thus, we learn that you can find food at Quality Inn and
Sheraton Inn but don't look for it at Comfort Inn or Hampton
Inn.
The task of sorting out the hotel brands must have been
daunting. There are close to 150 brands listed and I wouldn't want
to have to pass a test on which ones fall into which category.