You say "Marriott did this merger to make more money. The only reason any corporation exists."
Three comments:
- You're right.
- You say it in a disparaging way, as if the evil Marriott Corporation has arrived to foul up your Hyatt ownership. Not right.
- Why? Remember, the Marriott Vacations Club company paid a huge premium for the Hyatt system. They would be undermining their own bottom line by "devaluing" HRC, "dumping Hyatt", and then re-branding. Not only would this be the height of management idiocy, but the company's shareholders would have the president's head on a plate. Hyatt is a crown jewel in this acquisition, so--if anything--Marriott may decide to find ways to further upgrade HRC in order to further differentiate it from its Vistana and Marriott holdings.
Ultimately, no one knows what Marriott's strategy will be, but the branding and market segmentation strategy makes a lot of sense, and--as I mentioned in an earlier post here--Marriott has proven that it understands well how to slice and dice its target market with great marketing success.
I'm curious what you think of the attached screen shot showing all of the Marriott brands under one group, and then Hyatt separated to the side.
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Interesting, Sapper. I had not seen this, as I am not a Marriott owner. My immediate impression is this: now that Marriott has this huge portfolio of some of the most enviable properties in the timeshare industry, they need to work on differentiation. For example, who could describe the difference between a Marriott timeshare and a Westin timeshare? Whatever differences there are, they are subtle at best and immaterial in most cases. By the same token, I imagine Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis are very similar as well. Having brands that trip over each other or compete directly with each other makes no sense--and so Marriott has most likely been holding strategy sessions to begin the assignment of "brand personalities" aimed at segmenting the market more effectively.
As to why HRC is separated, that's really interesting. If you look at the arrangement of the various brands listed, they run to the high end, luxury brands on the far right. And while I love HRC, there's no way Hyatt is more luxurious than Ritz-Carlton or St. Regis. All of the other brands listed are those truly owned by Marriott--either under their hotel company, their timeshare company, or both--except for Hyatt.
Marriott is going to want to own the brand--and so my guess is that they will execute one of two strategies: 1) re-brand HRC and create a brand that is distinctly different than the others. This will take time, will require the approval of the various properties' boards, and will require a lot of consumer education as to why the new "X" brand is different from the others; 2) spin off the HRC product altogether. The second option is more expedient, but I doubt Marriott wants to let HRC go because of its unique locations.
It will be interesting to see what transpires.[/QUOTE]
Your last paragraph is my prediction exactly. I suspect it is one of these two options for HRC but I agree HRC has some great locations that MVC would be wise to keep.
The one thing I do not agree with is that Marriott is a very good brand manager. I suspect they will keep all the existing brand names except for Hyatt. They have not done any real differentiation of the brands they owned pre-merger so I would suspect they would not do a good job post-merger. I do not know the difference between any of the Marriott brands except Ritz Carlton is high end/luxury and all their other brands are lower end. I would argue that the Marriott brand name is perceived as somewhat more downscale than what Marriott has tried to position itself as. The quality of Marriott-branded hotels varies trememdously too.
To qualify, I do not think Marriott, Westin and Hyatt are differentiated either. If I did not read TUG, I would lump them all together in ther same category. I have always seen the Sheraton brand name as a lower level hotel.
I do not see any brand difference with Ritz Carlton, St Regis and Four Seasons. I may perceive RC and FS as slightly more upscale than St Regis. Not sure why I feel that way.
I think The W has done a good job of branding both in terms of the product and the marketing. It is the only one of the bunch that really feels different. It is more hip, high energy and seems to target a youngish crowd. The rooms and hotels feel very trendy.
