Boutique Hotels Set Standards, Seek Business Bookings
by Harvey ChipkinBoutique and lifestyle hotels are gaining traction with business travel buyers as the segment seeks to define itself, establish standards and develop relationships with the travel agency community.
Frances Kiradjian, a hospitality industry veteran who has also worked as a corporate travel manager, founded the Boutique & Lifestyle Lodging Association (BLLA) in 2009 to create standards for these hotels – and clarify what they are.
Noting that even 1,000-room properties have tacked on the boutique label, Kiradjian acknowledged that the word is overused. “Consumers have become totally confused because there is no true definition,” she told Travel Market Report.
Major hotel companies have also become involved in the market by introducing their own boutique or lifestyle brands, including Marriott’s Edition, InterContinental’s Indigo, and Starwood’s Aloft.
BLLA currently defines a boutique hotel as an intimate upscale property, usually luxurious or quirky, with 100 or fewer rooms. The association describes lifestyle hotels as combining living elements and activities into functional design and having 300 rooms or fewer.
The Travel Agent Connection
Kiradjian said she has implemented a number of strategies to make it easier for travel sellers to work with BLLA hotels, including negotiating rates with some member properties that are available through the GDSs under the code Stay Boutique.
While efforts like these have established a foundation for increased travel agent sales of boutiques, bookings remain focused on specialized customer segments.
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Reagan Lowery is an entertainment travel specialist with the Los Angeles office of Altour, which focuses heavily on entertainment industry clients. “I book a lot of boutiques,” she said. “I have many clients who prefer boutiques. Rather than a chain luxury hotel they prefer a smaller place that’s more charming and has more character. Personally, I prefer boutique hotels when I travel.”
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Colleen Hagg is senior vice president of corporate operations with Advantage Performance Network, a Savage, Minn.-based agency recently acquired by Altour. She does not book a lot of boutique hotels for business travelers. “We have not seen a lot of that,” she said. The reason? Price.
“I think it depends on the market,” Hagg said. “Our travelers are predominantly in the Midwest and are very cost-conscious. Most of those companies have preferred hotel rates, and we have not seen a lot of boutiques in those preferred programs.”
Lowery is careful about the boutiques she does book. “We do prefer they be part of larger groups like Leading Small Hotels or Small Luxury Hotels because then they have gone through a screening process and we trust our sales reps in those companies,” she said.
Despite the caution, independent boutiques are gaining ground in the business travel marketplace.
“We do have a big corporate clientele, including a large number of entertainment clients, because Vancouver has become Hollywood north,” said John Evans, CEO of Trilogy Properties, which runs two Opus Hotels in Vancouver and Montreal. Several clients from Silicon Valley in California also book more than 100 room nights per year in the hotels, he said.
