Addressing the issue of launching a new brand

The power of branding in the hotel industry is well known and is fundamental to the success of many big players.

In fact, many hotel ‘chains’ have built their business on the bread and butter bookings that come from having a well known name above the building — travellers in foreign cities may struggle with cultural differences and disorientation, but they can rely on a branded room product where they know what they are going to get.

Of course in a crowded market place such as Dubai, there are only so many brands available to owners and investors and new companies are constantly entering the industry.

But as Rotana president Selim El Zyr said at the Arabian Travel Market in May, when asked about the proliferation of new operating companies and new brands: “every year five or six some up, and at the end of the year one remains”.

It’s still too early to sound the death knell for many of the brands which have been launched this year, but it should be noted that most of them were conceived and launched in economic climates with far bluer skies than today’s gloomy outlook.

In other words, it is about to get a whole lot more competitive — is your brand strong enough to weather the storm?

Having visited many prototype properties for new brands, I must confess to being impressed when I visited The Address Downtown Burj Dubai last month.

While I personally still find the name odd from a pure journalist’s point of view — it is wordy writing “two The Address-branded properties” — I was pleasantly surprised by what I found at the property.

Of course everyone involved in the launch of a new brand goes over the top in promising “a new hospitality culture” and a “focus on service”, but this is the first hotel that actually felt a bit different after walking in the door.

Ultimately any new hotel is going to borrow from predecessors — at its most fundamental it is a building where people come to stay for a short time and then leave — but The Address Downtown Burj Dubai seems to have managed to create its own identity.

The ingredients used at the property are available to all new hotels — bold interior design, staff who can speak English and appear interested and a focus on small details.

But despite my favourable impressions of the brand, when I mentioned The Address to colleagues there were mixed reactions, with some loving it, some ambivalent and some unimpressed — and no doubt it would be the same for other brands.

Hotels face tough economic conditions with the knowledge that the travel industry — and particularly luxury travel — is often one of the hardest hit in times of short-fall.

It is time to see which brands will succeed, and which brands will fail.

Chris Jackson is the editor of Hotelier Middle East.

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