Ahead of the World Hotels conference, held in Thailand for the first time, earlier this month, BWH Hotel Group President and CEO Larry Cuculic spoke to HM’s Ruth Hogan about debunking ‘bleisure’ travel, the rise of soft brands, and the ways hotel teams are inspiring guests to travel.
Being back in Asia, a market that has been slower to recover from the pandemic, what’s your view on that market now?
I don’t believe the recovery has been slow. I would use the term methodical. In other words, we’re seeing the recovery in Asia, like we did in other regions of the world, based upon two factors: the first being vaccine availability, and then government restrictions. I think it’s important when we talk about any region’s recovery, that we think about what international travel is all about. If you’re in North America, you won’t decide to travel to Bangkok or Australia tomorrow, it may be two or three months from now; it’s a well thought decision, based upon an evaluation of how that government is reacting at that point in time with regard to travel. We saw the United States recovered first; Europe came back second. Now, I think Asia is in that methodical, climb backwards as well. And it’s a great thing to see.
Most hotel groups are reporting high demand for leisure travel, and that ‘bleisure’ trend of corporate travellers adding a few extra days to their stay. What are you seeing in terms of those travel trends across BWH Hotel Group?
It’s interesting that this concept of bleisure travel has been mentioned by the travel industry as a result of the pandemic. But when you think about it, has anything really changed in the scope of international travel. By way of an example, if I travelled from Chicago to Bangkok for business five years ago, wouldn’t I have put two or three days on the front or the back side of that trip to visit the temples or to visit the city itself? Of course, we did. For international travel, I think bleisure has always existed. We’ve always done that. I do think that the pent-up demand makes us appreciate that more. Now that we’re on the road traveling for business again, I think we appreciate the business travel opportunity, and we certainly are more inclined to add a day or two or maybe three.
What brands are your key focus areas for hotel development?
We’re going to continue to focus on our foundational brands which are Best Western, Best Western Plus and Best Western Premier. We have thousands of those hotels and, of course, I consider those to be the foundation upon which we can build our future.
We see strong demand for soft branded hotels – hotels that are independent but want to leverage our platforms of sales, marketing and technology, while retaining their identity as an independent hotel. And World Hotels is a subset of that. It’s an independent hotel portfolio and we see that growing. Coming out of the pandemic, I would offer that many independent hotels are looking to maximise their top line revenue, and the way to do that is through soft branding. We are very proud of our aspirational brands like World Hotels. We recently launched Home by BWH, which is our new extended stay brand. We saw how [that segment] outperformed traditional hotels during the pandemic and we see that continuing today. And we had Executive Residency by Best Western but we think there’s a potential to grow that by having a prototype hotel that appeals to developers as well as extended stay guests. We’re going to focus in 2023 and 2024 on growing that new brand, I think it’s tremendously important that we do that.
Unique, independent hotels are certainly becoming more and more popular with consumers. How are you delivering unique experiences for guests?
We created Aiden several years ago. It’s a hard brand that Best Western developed. It’s aimed at those with a midscale or upper midscale hotel who want to elevate it and reposition it as an experiential hotel. In Scandinavia, we have a deal there for multiples and it’s because of this demand for guests looking for something different and unique that they can relate to personally, that it’s not just a box you stay in overnight. You want to spend time at that hotel because it provides a personal experience. World Hotels is great for that, and that’s what Aiden is all about, which is also something we’re focused on this year.
We’re focusing on the public spaces of our hotels because so many of our guests want to be able to mingle with others and be in a space that provides them energy and excitement. I think it’s really important that we continue to meet guests expectations with regard to cleanliness, wellness, and that we make sure that their stay meets their expectations on a personal level.
Are there any other key trends that are front of mind for you this year?
The first is with regard to guest expectations, especially in the luxury segment. It is that personal touch and attention to detail, that’s what the luxury guest expects.
We’re focused on the entirety of the customer journey. When it comes to technology – from when a customer decides they want to make that trip and they’re making a selection of which hotel they want to stay at – that must be as frictionless as possible and as welcoming and easy as possible, so that the customer knows from the very start, you’re going to care about them and make sure their journey has the attention to detail and the personal touch that they want.
I think it’s truly important that we’re telling our team members that every interaction with the guest matters from the front desk, to food service to housekeeping, wherever it is, if you have an opportunity to interact and ask that guests if they’re having a good day, you should do that and welcome them and make sure they feel like they are truly appreciated in our hotels. Every interaction matters.
This year on a global level, we redefined our vision for Best Western which is ‘Inspiring travel through unique experiences’. As an industry, and especially as a company, we need to inspire travel; we want people to travel, people want to travel. Our job is to make sure they know that we will welcome them if we’re privileged enough for them to stay at our hotels, and that we’re going to inspire their future travel as well. We have unique hotels across the globe, each of those can inspire in their very own way to include every team member. Every team member can inspire by an interaction and let them know we care about them. We’re laser focused on making sure that we’re inspiring travel through our diverse portfolio of 4,500 hotels.
In terms of brand portfolio, are there any plans to expand your offering?
Never say never; but I think we have a full portfolio from Luxury to Premium Economy, soft brands, our foundational brand, our luxury World Hotels brands. Sometimes you have to be careful, because you have to make sure you protect your identity of who you are and what you stand for. You have to be super cautious. I’m pretty happy with the portfolio the way it is.
Can you share you outlook for the business in 2023?
We are two months into our new year – we have a fiscal year that starts December 1 – and our December and January were much stronger than we anticipated or budgeted for, which is terrific news. And while there may be threats of a mild recession in the third or fourth quarter, we know that we’re going to go gangbusters through the spring and summer – that’s our wheelhouse, because we are a strong leisure brand.
We are focused on sales to create that business travel during Monday through Thursday evenings, which I think is complementary to our strong leisure travel. I think we’re going to have a great 2023. All signs trend positive right now for us.