Branding

IF YOU run an independent hotel, can you afford not to be in a marketing consortium? With the pace of technological change within hotel reservations hotting up, and with the travel industry adopting airline computer booking systems, the answer, according to the consortia, is no.

Thomas Cook is linking its own reservation system to an airline system, allowing it to pick up data and carry out transactions on-screen. Consort marketing director, David Sankey, says the other multiple travel agencies will follow suit.

Independent hotels wishing to attract international business will be at a significant disadvantage if they are not linked to a global computerised booking system. The only affordable way to access this technology is via a representation company, or marketing consortium.

And the consortia are making sure they are geared up to meet this technological challenge. Consort will have linked in to a major airline system by the end of February, and another consortium, Leading Hotels of the World, is currently setting up direct links between its reservation systems and its members' computers, giving it the potential to sell all the rooms, but still allowing hotels to shut off certain room allocations and specify rates.

At the same time, it is undoubtedly easier and more cost-effective for tourist organisations to work with groups of hotels. Marketing director of Logis of Great Britain, David Horsley, says regional tourist boards and the British Tourist Authority are almost refusing to deal with individual hoteliers, because they know they cannot deliver the level of business individual hoteliers are looking for.

With the recent upturn in business, the hospitality industry will switch from short-term crisis management to a more strategic way of thinking and running its business.

For the hotel consortia, this demands new tactics. The technological revolution will ensure that much of the marketing activity in the corporate area will be devoted to servicing the system operators, such as the booking agents, and increasing their familiarity with consortia products. In addition, evolution within hotel consortia products will result in an inevitable shift in the focus of their marketing activities.

At the heart of the hotel consortium concept there is a contradiction: by banding together, independent hotels can compete against the might of the big chains; but branding and the corporate approach which follows are at odds with the individual, go-it-alone stance of consortium members.

This tension could well be reflected in a divergence in the styles of consortia. Some will continue to set a membership criteria based on certain standards of product, matching the big chains with their branding.

This can be seen in the way Best Western is putting increasing emphasis on quality control to make customers feel confident and gain awareness. It has linked up with the Dutch equivalent of the AA motoring organisation, the ANWB, to provide inspections of hotels in 15 European countries.

Chief executive of Best Western UK, Nigel Embry, says that as the world gets smaller, this approach is vital. "We are trying to introduce an international quality control standard that everyone who uses Best Western can identify with," he says.

As these consortia are still collections of individuals, one brand will not fit every property and it is likely that consortia will have to adopt the approach of the big chains which brand within clusters. But rather than property standards, different factors will be used by other consortia - allowing greater individuality among members.

This year, a Germany-based company is launching Design Hotels International, a worldwide marketing and reservations system for design-led hotels such as Morgans in New York and the Art Hotel Sorat in Berlin. Another option is to market under a geographical grouping. Thames Valley Hotels is one consortium already operating on a regional basis.

Robert Carter, managing director of Lucknam Park at Colerne in Wiltshire, says the world of the consumer has changed. "Consumers are looking for the same product, but packaged or marketed in a different way." Consortia, he adds, have a huge part to play in persuading consumers it is safe to go back into hotels.

The emphasis, hoteliers feel, has to go on understanding the requirements of the travel agents and developing a much more personal relationship with them to raise their awareness of consortia.

Robert Carter says this is a particular problem among US travel agents and his solution has been to appoint a representative on the West Coast who goes around the travel agents with a portfolio of hotels. The travel agents book through her because they know and trust her. So successful has this approach been, that Carter has recruited a Florida representative and is now looking for someone in New York.

"The mistake consortia make is to think that if they just keep getting the name out there, people will want to come," says Justin Taylor, Earl of Portlethin and managing director of Thornbury Castle in Wiltshire. "We send out brochures of 40 hotels which are all pretty much the same, they're all in the countryside, but they don't talk too much about the destination."

Perhaps the hotel consortia could learn something from the marketing approach Justin Taylor is adopting. To provide travel agents with a one-stop shop, this year he will be launching a new directory, Best Loved Hotels of the World, Volume I, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, which will group establishments regionally, with each section preceded by a guide to the area, listings of places to visit and things to do, plus maps.

The hotels accepted for inclusion will be a cross-section of character properties ranging from £40 to £300 a night. The criteria is that they are the best in their area, according to RAC, AA and ETB recommendations. Hotels will be listed alphabetically within their region and their entries will contain all the information agents will need to make a booking, including consortia membership.

Thornbury Castle is part of the Pride of Britain consortium and Taylor is adamant the directory cannot replace that membership, with all its benefits of referrals and providing a networking forum for hoteliers to exchange information. "I don't want to take away from anyone's reservation system, I would like to make Britain user-friendly for Americans," says Taylor.

To sign up or not?

Buying into a consortium can be an expensive business and hoteliers should be realistic about the benefits before they part with any hard-earned cash. It is also important to be realistic about the economic potential of your hotel - membership is not a magic wand.

Many hoteliers will measure the benefits in terms of extra bookings, and these can prove to be a sizeable proportion of annual income. For example, Alan Long, managing director of Belton Woods Hotel, near Grantham, Lincolnshire and chairman of Best Western's European board, says he gets about 17% of his business from Best Western; Andrew Salter, general manager of the Spa Hotel, Tunbridge Wells, estimates his membership of Best Western to have generated £60,000-worth of business in 1992.

How much you get will depend on you, your hotel and how much effort you are prepared to put into the consortium. It is essential to monitor the source of your enquiries, because business does not just come from the consortia's centralised reservations services. It will also come from referrals by fellow consortium members and through customers booking direct as a result of the hotel's exposure in consortium brochures.

Joining can be expensive, but you could recoup your fees from the savings made through the group purchasing programmes. Big savings can be made on the liquor side, as well as gas, electricity and fuel oil, all of which can now be bought through consortia.

Indirectly, membership can provide benefits which are less easy to quantify, such as image enhancement. For hotels such as Lucknam Park, which are sold on their image, complementing and enhancing their image is a vital factor in choosing the right consortium.

As well as tailoring hotel products to the needs of the travel trade, consortium membership also gives lobbying power and, by acting as a discussion forum, helps break down the barriers of isolation created by being an independent hotelier. Some consortia also offer training and act as advisers/consultants on marketing issues. For customers, it can put the seal of professionalism on an establishment and give them the security of someone else to to complain to if things go wrong.

Choosing a suitable consortium requires homework. Don't join and hope to change the organisation from the inside - that will never work. It is vital to get the right relationship from the beginning, because you are effectively going into a deal which requires a long-term financial commitment from which it could take at least 18 months to see a return.

Integrating a hotel into a consortium's marketing programme takes time, so the consortia themselves often require a contractual commitment for several years, with a significant notice period if you want to leave and financial penalties if you want to break the contract early. So look at the small print before you sign.

Also look at the type of business the consortium is generating, and make sure it is applicable to your hotel. Stuart Nicoll, proprietor of Hellidon Lakes Hotel & Country Club in Daventry, joined Best Western over a year ago after seeing how much business a neighbouring establishment (which had left the consortium as it had been sold) had received. "That business completely evaporated," he says. "I would now look in great detail at where the business the consortium puts into other hotels is coming from."

Be clear about the type of business you expect the consortium to generate - if your hotel is full mid-week and you want to generate bookings for the quieter weekend periods, it's no good if the consortium can only offer more of what you are generating yourself.

Go to the HQ, meet the people who will be selling your product, and make your own assessment of how well they know the hotels already on their books and how efficient the operation is. Look at the consortium's breaks programme and how effectively it is being sold - is it on the racks in the travel agencies?

Talk to current consortium members whose businesses are similar in size and geographic location to your own about both the good and bad points of membership. Ask about quality, if hotel members are inspected and what the membership criteria is.Take a look at the other members Remember a consortium is only as good as its worst bed, so would you be happy to refer your customers to them?

Consortia themselves go to a lot of trouble to ensure new members will not only feel comfortable within their organisation, but that they will be able to help and generate business for them. At the same time, hoteliers would do well to remember that buying membership is not like paying for an ad in the Yellow Pages - you don't just sit back and wait for the enquiries to roll in. The hotelier who gets the most out of his or her consortium is the one prepared to take an active role within it.

Chore though it might seem, this means keeping up-to-date with consortium paperwork and taking the time to go to regional meetings and AGMs. If you are asked to submit photographs for inclusion in a brochure, make sure they are good quality. Alan Long at Belton Wood advises hoteliers to take the PR initiative with their consortium - for example, invite central reservations or conference staff out to see the hotel - so they keep their hotel's name up front within the organisation.

Take advantage of the help and expertise your consortium has on tap. Consort, for example, has offered training programmes to help staff within member hotels become more professional. But sadly, many members failed to take advantage of this advice. Chief executive David Hayes admits: "We were on a hiding to nothing."

But Consort is addressing the apathy within sections of the membership. This year it is splitting its membership into small groups, each of which will be assigned a senior Consort executive who will be responsible for maintaining contact. "If we are successful, we will get input, and commitment will get business," says Hayes. o