On Wednesday, Best Western Hotels & Resorts launched two new global brands, Sadie and Aiden, targeting the upscale and upper midscale segments respectively.
The move comes as Best Western, which in the U.S. has historically dealt more in midmarket, shifts itself further into upscale. “We see the writing on the wall that eventually the new construction piece will not be as strong as it is right now,” Amy Hulbert the company’s VP of boutique and upscale brands, told HOTELS.
A summary of the launch and Best Western’s take:
- No properties were in the pipeline as of Wednesday’s launch, though Hulbert says the company plans to target major markets like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
- Hulbert said, though there’s no target amount of Aidens and Sadies for next year, once those numbers are solidified they will be “extremely aggressive.”
- Both Sadie and Aiden hotels will have a bar and Sadie will have more full-service F&B offerings – departures from the traditional Best Western model, which the company hopes will act as lobby activators. There will also be no front desk and developers have a good deal of freedom to customize each property operationally.
- Best Western’s 2015-launched boutique brands, Vib And Glo, today stand with one Vib in Antalya, Turkey and one Glo in DeSoto, Texas, with five total Glo properties to open in North America before year’s end.
Key insights from Amy Hulbert:
- “The boutique segment for us has been so meaningful from a development standpoint because it’s really opened the door to a whole new segment for us.”
- “We see the writing on the wall that eventually the new construction piece will not be as strong as it is right now. But we know that in the cycle we’ll soon be looking to some conversion hotels and the magic there is about repositioning assets that are in great locations that are underperforming.”
- “Brands come for a reason for us. We usually see a need in the marketplace before we would begin development on any brand and we saw the need here. If you look at the history of boutique and how that’s tracking, when we look at the segments right now, there’ huge growth in upper midscale and there’s great growth in upscale. And the penetration of boutique hotels in a low of major markets is really, really low. So we see that as a huge opportunity.”