Choice Hotels International announced a brand refresh for its Cambria Suites brand, which will have a new visual identity and be renamed Cambria Hotels & Suites.
The brand will also see a new design prototype, still being worked on with a scheduled completion set for December, when cost-per-key data will be released. In the lobby Cambria Hotels & Suites will feature a soft, rounded front desk and will feature the bar as the focal point of the lobby. In the guestroom, the brand will feature a larger vanity space in the bathroom and updated furniture. The new prototype will allow for further expansion in urban markets and give the consumer more choice in their room type.
“The number one growth area for the brand is urban markets. To take an all-suites product and put it in Chicago or Manhattan’s very vertical buildings is difficult. This gives us a lot more flexibility,” Michael Murphy, Choice’s senior vice president of upscale brands, told HOTELS. “What the evolving consumer wants is a balance of options. No longer is suites holding the cache is used to hold. The customer wants room types.”
Choice Hotels International, Rockville, Maryland, said it spent the last year studying business and leisure travelers, with a focus on Millennials entering the workforce, to determine how the brand should evolve. In addition to design, the research addressed more than 140 experiential elements of the guest experience, including the arrival experience. As part of the refresh, the brand will begin playing soft “indie-style” music in its lobbies. “Programming music for the target demographic is something we’re passionate about. We just recently went through all of our customer research and found that being able to know what the hottest new music is in indie rock is valuable to them, so we are working with an outside agency to match the appropriate music. It will be more indie-style music that is emerging than top 40 music,” Murphy said.
Another area the research delved into was the Choice Privileges loyalty program. Under the brand refresh, guests that are Choice Privileges members will have the option of saving their newly acquired points for a free night or immediately redeeming them at the bar for a craft beer or cocktail.
“In our research, guests told us loud and clear that they want choices and options at every point in their interaction with a hotel brand. As a result, we are changing the brand’s name to Cambria Hotels & Suites and will provide guests with the option of choosing a stunning standard hotel room that feels like an upgrade or an actual suite,” Murphy said. “We’ve changed our logo and color palette to reflect the new brand tonality – warm, approachable, flexible and uncomplicated.”
Murphy told HOTELS that more details on the brand prototype will be revealed at the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference in June and more details on the brand’s new service package revealed at The Lodging Conference in October.