New Hotel Brands Target Next-Gen Business Travelers

The hotel industry continues to reinvent itself to accommodate the ever-changing face of the business traveler. These days, the revamp is targeting younger travelers for whom technology is indispensable.

During the past 38 months, a total of 38 hotel brands have been introduced, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers hotel analyst Bjorn Hansen. Of those brands, 20 are in the luxury segment, 12 upscale, three extended stay and three mid-scale.

When making choices, younger business travelers want brands that pamper, fit their lifestyles and offer a unique hotel experience –rather than seeking comfort in traditionally familiar brands. Therefore, hotel companies are creating new brands that offer guest amenities uncommon in most big-named brands, including sleek flat-screen desktop computers located at the bar.

“This generation lives in loft-type accommodations, drinks Starbucks and flies on JetBlue,” said John Russell, CEO of NYLO Hotels, a new brand that opened its first doors in December in Plano, Texas. “They want a new experience. They like design-driven, high-tech environments for a good price. It is a product void and a price-point void.”

NYLO plans to build 52 new hotels around the United States –including in the metropolitan areas of Denver, Dallas and Providence, R.I.- each incorporating local aesthetics and, therefore, avoiding complete uniformity within the brand.

Earlier this year, Marriott International and boutique hotel guru Ian Schrager partnered to launch a new luxury brand named Edition. The boutique brand will debut in 2010 with properties in Arizona, Chicago, Costa Rica, Los Angeles, Madrid, Miami, Paris and Washington, D.C. The partners expect as many as 30 development deals by year-end.

Traditionally, hotel companies relied on brand awareness to drive bookings, but with the help of the Internet, new brands can be marketed online with pictures and reviews. In that way, hotel companies can take risks and introduce individualized boutique brands.

The new generation of traveler is concerned not only with staying at a hip, new location, but also with what effect their stay may have on the environment. Reducing a business traveler’s carbon footprint has been a major concern, and travel managers have responded to that by including environmental questions in the requests for proposals they send to lodging companies.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide in 2006 introduced Element, which the company this year said would be the first brand built exclusively with properties certified by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.