Insider: Boutique Hotels: There's a whole new way of doing it
By Jeffrey Catrett, Dean, Les Roches School of Hospitality Management, Kendall College, Chicago
Mr. Jeffrey Catrett
They’ve been called “terrorists”, rebels, New Age fluff, and the Gen. X hotel type. Once the edgy underground alternatives of the avant garde, eking out a fragile niche by taking advantage of the diseconomies of scale of the 800 pound gorillas, these 90 pound guerrillas have established themselves as a major force in the hotel landscape. Boutique hotels have gone from underground to mainstream with every major hotel company from Starwood to Intercontinental to Hyatt and even Marriott developing one or more boutique products to seduce hip Baby Boomers, trendy Baby Busters and restless Millennials. Boutique companies like Kimpton are being embraced by an increasingly wide population nationwide.
There is no longer any doubt that boutique hotels have taught the hotel industry a powerful lesson. Once ignored as pure niche players, the boutiques showed the mainstream hospitality industry that design integrity, relaxed chic, personalized service, human scale and local sensitivity do matter to a wide spectrum of the travelling public. Four Seasons Hotels, Marriotts, Westins, Hyatt Regencies and an array of Hiltons are undergoing massive renovation to adapt to the evolving demands of an increasingly travelled, savvy and sophisticated mainstream market. It is not an understatement to say that boutiques saved the hotel industry from the commoditization predicted by most hospitality watchers in the 1990’s, delighting the senses with their emphasis on the unique and the authentic.
But maybe the real lesson to be learned from the success of boutique hotels is still under the radar of most major companies. If other industries are any indication, then it may not be about adding a trendy boutique offering to an existing line-up or trying to make the big hotels feel like boutiques. What if the success of the boutiques signals the end of the big box hotels altogether, as hospitality experiences the same “collapse of the middle” observed in industries from retail to financial services? Could the Marriotts and Westins and Hyatts and Hiltons be doomed to the same fate as the Sears Roebucks, the Woolworths and a myriad of name department stores in cities throughout the country? Or will the vast economies of scale, the loyalty programs, the distribution systems and the brand recognition of the major brands relegate the boutiques to a permanent if important niche position among hotel types?
In my article, “Boutique Hotels: There's a whole new way of doing it", in the Hotel Business Review, I take a look at what the boutique phenomenon may mean to the hotel industry of the future as psychographic marketing joins generational marketing, and differentiation based on price and usage in threatening today’s consolidating industry with an entirely new kind of fragmentation.
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Sincerely,
Jeffrey Catrett
Dean
Les Roches School of Hospitality Management
Kendall College, Chicago
jcatrett@kendall.edu
