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The hotel industry’s branding equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses (or Kardashians) continues to thrive \u2014 and the latest move points to a new luxury offering in the works.<\/p>\n
Major hotel companies like Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt often move in lockstep when it comes to brand additions and launches. When one company announces a new brand, you can usually expect the others won’t be far behind with their own version.<\/p>\n
Marriott launched the youthful Moxy<\/a>, Hilton followed with Motto<\/a> and Hyatt added Caption<\/a>. Just in the last year, all three of these companies have made a play for extended-stay and midscale brands with the launch or acquisition of brands like Hyatt Studios<\/a>, MidX Studios<\/a> (Marriott’s working title for its extended-stay brand) and City Express<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hilton garnered plenty of buzz with the launch of Spark<\/a>, its play for the “premium economy” sector, and Project H3<\/a>, the working title for its own extended-stay brand. But the company isn’t done there.<\/p>\n A new brand is in the works, and it’s likely to put Hilton directly on the playground of Marriott’s Edition brand.<\/p>\n “We don’t have a pure hard brand in the luxury lifestyle,” Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta said on a company earnings call late last month. “We will.”<\/p>\n While everyone knows what a luxury hotel brand is, the term “lifestyle hotel” is a little trickier to pin down. But these are hotels that typically make at least half their revenue off restaurants, bars or other amenities beyond guest rooms and suites. Edition fits the bill, but so do other offerings like The Standard and Nobu Hotels.<\/p>\n Ian Schrager, co-founder of Studio 54 and one of the earliest leaders of the boutique hotel movement, was an early player in the lifestyle hotel space thanks to his partnership with Marriott on Edition<\/a>. While that partnership is winding down<\/a>, he has another offering in this space with Public, currently with one hotel in New York City but slated to grow to other cities.<\/p>\n Expect Hilton to announce details on the new luxury lifestyle brand later this year, Nassetta said.<\/p>\n