I'm firmly in the "hate the new brand" camp.
We bought Starwood, because we knew and trusted Starwood. And we fully understood the relationship between the Starwood, Westin and Sheraton brands -- it's well known and understood by travellers around the world.
If, on my first timeshare tour, we'd been told "We're Vistana, and we build and sell Westin and Sheraton resorts" it would have been off-putting and made me less comfortable -- even though I fully get that hotel brands are commodities that are licensed to other companies (ie who are not Starwood!)whose names the travelling public usually never hear.
This new "We're Vistana, and we have Westin and Sheraton properties and we're affiliated with SPG" branding really seems crazy to me.
"Vistana" is the new corporate entity, owned in turn by ILG, that owns and sells Westin and Sheraton resorts. I'd have to think that one of the options available to them was to continue operating as Starwood Vacation Ownership. (I'd be shocked if that wasn't an option for the new company. Starwood, after all, is in the business of licensing their brands to other companies who build, own, and manage hotels and resorts. Their core business is not building hotels, it's selling/licensing the brands that they've created to developers.)
The operating brand for the new timeshare entity does not have to match the name of the corporation who owns it. There was huge value in carrying the Starwood name in their branding -- and as I see the new web-site and marketing materials, I see that value fading away.
Consider that Starwood, as a company, owns very, very few properties now. They sell the brands, the systems, the management, and the SPG program to hundreds upon hundreds of other companies who actually own and operate those Starwood branded hotels and resorts. Vistana is just one of those companies. But it's the only one tossing its own brand into the mix with all of those established and trusted Starwood brands.
The Westin Bonaventure Hotel in LA, for example, is owned and operated by a company called Interstate Hotels. But hardly anyone will have ever heard of Interstate Hotels. Because, at that property and the others that they own, they brand themselves only as Westin, Starwood, and SPG. You're not staying at a "Westin owned by Interstate Hotels" or at "Interstate Hotels, the downtown LA licensee of the Westin brand". You're staying at a Westin. Period. That's the business model. That's what guest want and expect and trust -- "Westin", not "Interstate who licenses Westin and participates in SPG".
Yes, guests there are actually customers of Interstate, but they'd never know it. And that's by design, because the value and the consumer trust is in the Starwood branding ... not in the branding of the hotel owner or development company.
The Vistana name should have been relegated to the back office in Orlando and the name on the bank accounts and the legal set-up. It should never have been tossed into the consumer branding mix, as it just confuses and devalues the other established Starwood brands that are being used alongside it.
