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A Lesson In Marketing, From Motel 6
August 27, 2007

Nobody is going to confuse a Motel 6 with a Mondrian, so when Tom Bodett rattles off a list of things a traveler doesn’t truly need—and thus, won’t find at a Motel 6—as he does in this amusing podcast (text summary here), any hotelier above 2 stars probably shouldn’t pay his suggestions a whole lot of heed. Among the amenities Bodett the budget traveler finds superfluous are valet parking, sewing kits, almonds on the pillow and “all that extra hoo-hah.” It’s quite a departure from the stuff we normally hear about from the other end of the lodging spectrum—whereas Bodett feels almonds on the pillow are too much, Loews Hotels CEO Jonathan Tisch says Chocolates on the Pillow Aren’t Enough. So who is right? They both are.

Higher-end hoteliers can find a valuable and important reminder in Bodett’s philosophy: whoever your customers are, embrace them and give them what they want. To be sure, there is a demographic of travelers perfectly content paying US$35 a night for a stiff bed and a 19-inch TV, and Motel 6 parent Accor knows they will relate to Bodett’s folksy dismissal of costly amenities. Where many travelers see value-added amenities, others will inevitably see unnecessary waste. The moral of the story is that a hotel should not try to be something it isn’t, but rather, understand what it is and be that perfectly. Motel 6 is hardly perfect, but it does an outstanding job of knowing what it wants to be and being that.

Posted by Adam Kirby on August 27, 2007 | Comments (0)