Marriott International’s Autograph Collection Hotels celebrated its fifth anniversary this year and will add its 100th property by the end of 2015. Tom Otley speaks to Autograph's vice president Julius Robinson during a European roadshow for the brand
Autograph Collection is obviously popular with hotel owners, but what do frequent travellers get out of it?
The collection is aimed at both business travellers who’ve been travelling to typically branded hotels and who are looking for a different experience, and also what we like to call in Marriott the “Millennial mindset”. These are folks who are not necessarily millennials, but who are very curious about different social experiences and mixing business with pleasure. So it’s geared to travellers who aren’t typically staying in a branded hotel, and that segment is growing.
The reason so many business travellers go to branded hotels is because they like to know what sort of property they are going to find when they arrive.
Uniqueness and differentiation are pillars of the Autograph brand. Our tag line is “Exactly like nothing else”. We want each hotel to have its own individual experience and individual service. There are standards across quality, fit and finish and minimum basic service standards. What the hotels are allowed to do is express their own identity. So we have 100 hotels with 100 individual brands and their own unique story.
So is it part of the story to offer free wifi?
It’s a mixed bag. Most of the hotels will offer some form of free wifi. Marriott Rewards members get free wifi.
How many of these Autograph hotels are managed by Marriott?
Two in the US and three outside the US. There are another four or five coming in the pipeline which will be managed. We think it works in both a managed environment as well as a franchise partnership.
So is this a conversion brand, converting existing hotels into Autograph Hotels and then joining Marriott?
When it began it was clearly a conversion opportunity. But in 2015 - and with our forward platform -50 per cent are new build and they are coming in as Autograph hotels. That wasn’t the case five years ago. It’s a great story for us. We don’t think those hotels would have been Marriotts because of their size or location, so they are uniquely designed as Autograph. In Europe we are also finding pockets of hotels, such as the Boscolo Hotels which joined the collection.
Are these hotels attracting more business or leisure visitors?We trend 50:50 between leisure and business across the collection, though in a business market such as London you would see more business during the week and more leisure in the weekend. I’d say the propensity for leisure business is higher than it would be in a typical Marriott. Some hotels have seen a growth in corporate business through our relationship with the TMCs, through our global account network but also influenced by the Marriott Rewards programme. For hotels where there is a corporate potential, we’ve definitely seen a big impact in the corporate market.
What percentage of Autograph guests are Marriott Rewards members?
Across the Collection it runs a 55 per cent penetration rate for Marriott rewards members, and that’s typical of what you would see in a full service Marriott hotel, including both redemptions and paying guests. Business travellers redeem at these hotels because Autograph properties run at a typically higher rate than Marriott.
Why is that?
Because of the locations, and the fit and finish. There are fewer of them, which helps the rates as well. We’ve convinced the consumer that the quality of the Autograph Collection is such that the hotels should garner a premium. Also because there are 100 individual brands within the collection, there’s also no perceived rate ceiling, so this hotel is worth what we and the consumer think it is.
Which is good for you and the hotels, but what about the corporates and the business travel customers?
There’s a significant difference in rates depending on the nights, and each pricing is local. The hotels have to make the best decisions with regards to the key accounts, and it’s important that those accounts know what they’re getting when they walk in.
Well if I did walk in, how would I even know I was in an Autograph hotel?
You might not. There’s a plaque on the outside, that’s a requirement, a magazine in the room, that’s a requirement, and if you are a Marriott Rewards we will recognise you at reception. Beyond that, the idea is to bring in folks who typically wouldn’t stay in a branded hotel, so we want to manage the Autograph brand with a light touch. We want the brand of the hotel to come through. These people are to an extent brand agnostic.
If they are brand agnostic they’re a nightmare for a company like Marriott aren’t they?
Well, they’re unpredictable. But they also have the highest spend across food and beverage and for the room.
If they’re agnostic to brands, then they’ll end up being agnostic to Autograph.
Not if I convince them that following Autograph is giving them what they want around the world. If they saw something they liked at hotel number 27 they might try hotel number 48 in a different place.
How fast is the collection set to grow?
We are growing at 25 per cent a year, so pending some incredibly unfortunate economic circumstance we expect that to continue.
There are other big hotel brands like Hilton with its Curio brand and Starwood with Tribute going after the same traveller
From what I understand, something like Curio still has the Hilton name attached to it as in “Curio by Hilton”. We don’t do that.
Given the rapid expansion, have any hotels been kicked out of the collection yet?
We’ve had a couple leave. Now we have 100 hotels, my job is to make sure the hotels who sold the story five years ago are still doing that. So we check that through our brand standard audits. Most hotels in our system are audited once a year. Autograph properties are audited twice a year. So we’ll continue to pay attention to hotels when they’re not living up to the brand promise we want in place.
autographhotels.com