Keyword 1: "Marginalization"
In major cities in China, there are five-star hotels newly opened every year, which can be described as shining stars. Unfortunately, few of the brands that people like to talk about are local brands from Chinese Mainland.
According to the statistics of Maidian Research Institute, 161 medium and high-end hotels were newly opened nationwide in 2017, and 62 hotel groups around the world have opened in China.
In 2017, the TOP 10 Group was still dominated by international hotel groups. Marriott Group had the largest number of landing projects, accounting for 22% of the total number of opening projects. Hilton Global Hotel Group and Intercontinental Hotel Group ranked second and third. Later, the hotel groups with the largest supply were Yaduo, Shangri La, Accor, Kaiyue, Wanda, Wyndham and Hong Kong International Theme Park Co., Ltd. (Hong Kong Disneyland). If Wanda Hotels and Resorts did not occupy a place with a share of 2.6%, Chinese local brands would be completely absent from this list.
In the first quarter of 2018, there were 44 medium and high-end hotels newly opened in China, and the total number of rooms exceeded 12000. Among them, Marriott International Group is still the largest, accounting for 6. In high-end hotels, foreign capital is still an important force. While Chinese hotel brands continue to go abroad, the enthusiasm of foreign hotel brands to open stores in China remains unchanged.
"In the high-end hotel market, local hotel groups have been marginalized." The conclusion drawn by industry experts through their observation of the hotel industry many years ago has not changed.
Keyword 2: "vacancy"
Speaking of the word "high-end", the domestic hotel industry is often roughly associated with "gorgeous", which is not necessarily the case.
In 1995, Indian rich businessman Sonu Shivdasani, together with his wife Eva Malmstrom, created a distinctive brand Six Senses in Maldives, which won the favor of many world-class celebrities for its return to slow life and respect for nature and the original ecology.
Six Senses gives another definition of "luxury", that is, the most luxurious thing is to slow down the pace of life. Its value was already reflected when it was sold to Pegasus Capital in 2012. Although the transaction price has not been announced, Six Senses has developed into 10 resorts and 28 SPAs in 20 countries around the world when it was sold.
Six Senses' inspiration to the hotel industry is to create a distinctive style and turn it into brand value with profound insight into human needs.
Unfortunately, in this regard, Chinese hoteliers have not been able to understand such an important point. "At present, China's hotel management lacks the spirit of innovation and local characteristics, and has made little progress in brand building, which makes it difficult to be unique in the world." Some insiders said so.
In China, although five-star hotel brands have been struggling to catch up, they are far from being "unique" in terms of innovation. Whether Wanda Vista, Greenland series, or Portofino, which have been working on five-star or even super five-star brands in recent years, lack their own distinctive characteristics in terms of external image or cultural core. When talking about these brands, people only feel familiar in style, but vague in connotation.
For example, "magnificent" is the most popular word used to describe Wanda Vista Hotel. For this reason, each Wanda culture has invested a lot of money in design and decoration, stacking various luxurious art designs in every corner, but other features can hardly be described.
While there are more than 30 five-star and above hotel brands, such as Ritz Carlton with elegance and magnificence, Bulgari with strong artistic sense, W Hotel leading a fashionable life, etc., but each brand has basically no similarities in positioning and style, and each has its own supporters in their arms.
In addition, there is a big gap between local five-star hotels and international brands in terms of service standards. The classic hotel brands have their own characteristics in terms of service. Whether it is the fragrance in the lobby, the lighting in the guest room, the plate in the restaurant or the smile of the employees, each link is actually the embodiment of a good management value system, which shows a mature brand image bit by bit.
In contrast to domestic hotel brands, many details often expose that the service level is incompatible with the high star level. The characteristics of the brand include basic conditions such as hardware facilities and personal conditions, that is, service, but domestic hotels have not kept up with these two aspects.
Keyword 3: "Overtaking"
According to the statistics of Maidian Research Institute, the top two high-end hotel brands in the Chinese market share in 2017 were Crown Holiday and Sheraton, the first foreign brands to enter the Chinese market.
According to a researcher from China Tourism Research Institute, with the improvement of economy, China's hotel industry has indeed entered the stage of consumption upgrading, and the requirements for brand quality and service have been greatly improved. The soil for high-end hotel brands to survive has gradually become rich.
Now, the international hotel brands that have entered China for many years will not miss this market that has been cultivated for many years. With years of exploration, both in the layout of first tier cities and the penetration of second tier and third tier cities have become more and more handy.
In 2017, the first Bulgari Hotel in China was successfully opened in Beijing, and Liushan Hotel has become a landscape at the foot of Qingcheng Mountain. In 2018, Raffles positioned itself in Shenzhen and Cultural Orient opened two hotels in Beijing, not to mention that nearly 40 luxury hotels under Marriott International's eight distinctive brands will be unveiled in various places.
Some insiders commented that: "In the business hotel sector, due to the lack of cultural accumulation, the local five-star hotel brand influence is really difficult to catch up in a short time."
So, is there any opportunity for local hotel brands to overtake at corners? Some experts said that the opportunity still lies in "intellectual capital", which is represented by high-end hotel brands with independent intellectual property rights. The primary task of China's hotel industry is to move from hotel investment to hotel management.
The key to developing the hotel management industry in China is to seize the development of brands with independent intellectual property rights, implement the national requirements for developing cultural soft power, and change the situation of emphasizing investment over management and hardware over software. This is not only the requirement of China's economic transformation, but also the precondition for China's services to go global.
Nowadays, national brands such as Nuojin of the First Tour, Brilliant Plaza and Brilliant Plaza under Greenland try to use modern luxury to interpret Chinese characteristics, so as to create a "national brand", which has received positive market response.
The person in charge of Beijing Nuojin Hotel said that Nuojin had learned a lot of advanced brand building and management experience from international luxury hotels, but what Nuojin wanted to do was "experiential" Chinese hotels, "not only focusing on beds and meals, but also paying more attention to the guests' spiritual immersion. We prepared enough details to entertain not only Chinese guests, but also international tourists."
Undoubtedly, the accumulation of time itself is a necessary condition for building a brand. However, the market will never wait for lagging players. In terms of building five-star hotels, it is a project that requires both great capital and great wisdom to balance the quality and speed of a Chinese brand.
Source: Internet materials (the article views only represent the author himself)