Nine brands and counting…

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Jean-Paul Herzog: Hilton is and continues to be the number one hotel brand in the world.

Hilton is one of the most established international hotel names with a strong brand and a reputation for luxury and style.

But as the Hilton group has expanded, encompassing more brands and properties in locations across the globe - with many more to come - some industry professionals, including former Hilton employees, have argued that the Hilton brand has "lost its way".

"Hilton has a brand and it doesn't know what it is," former Hilton employee Andrew Love, now deputy chairman of The Ritz London told ATN during a recent visit to Dubai.

"With Hilton International you used to know what you were getting, and they had such a strong brand, but now they have got it wrong."

Hilton's critics claim the group's nine brands - Hilton, Conrad, DoubleTree, Embassy Suites Hotels, Hampton, Hilton Garden Inn, Hilton Grand Vacations, Homewood Suites and The Waldorf=Astoria Collection, not to mention its products, which include Hilton Worldwide Resorts - have caused confusion in the market.

Another former Hilton employee, Daniel Hajjar, who recently left the Rotana group to launch his own hospitality company, conceded that most hotel industry professionals were bemused by Hilton's brand strategy.

"I am not surprised if the public is confused too. What is a Doubletree? Nobody knows; then they see the Hilton name. But it is not a Hilton, it is a sub-brand," he said.

"One or two brands [is ok], but when you get to nine or 10 it gets really confusing."

And if hoteliers are confused, it's not unreasonable to assume that the travel trade, including travel agents and tour operators, are baffled too.

ATN therefore asked Hilton Hotels' recently appointed president - Middle East & Africa, Jean-Paul Herzog, to explain each brand and to set the record straight, once and for all.

The Hilton brand has been accused of "losing its way" by fellow hoteliers, as well as former Hilton employees. What is your response to these claims?

It's always very easy to beat on the best. Hilton is and continues to be number one.

I think it is a spurious comment that these people make. Many credible surveys always put Hilton at the top. As a brand there is a lot of history attached to Hilton, as well as glamour. This is not easily undone. There have been massive changes, but I would not put those down to Hilton, rather to the industry, and Hilton - as well as every other hotel group - went along with those changes and embraced them.

But what about the consistency of the Hilton brand itself - some Hiltons feel like a Hilton, and others don't?

A 20-year-old hotel and a new hotel will be different. What we are doing to create consistency is having certain recognisable icons at each of our hotels. We have just introduced our brand standards - applicable to service and physical elements - to make sure we achieve consistency at all Hilton properties.

We have also introduced new amenities from Crabtree & Evelyn, which have been rolled out at every property, with just a couple of exceptions due to problematic import restrictions. There are also icons like ‘Hilton Breakfast'; a breakfast service which has successful attributes.

We always serve fresh orange to every breakfast guest, for example. ‘Hilton Meetings' is another icon, which is currently being rejuvenated.

There is also On Cue, our new bespoke technology platform that will bring together our reservation systems and our databases and will ensure that when a guest checks in, we will have their profile and preferences on record. This is up-and-running in the US and will be rolled out over the next two years. The first market it will be applied to in this region is Egypt - in Q2 2008. This is a real point of differentiation for us and will be used across all of our brands.

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