When it comes to the evolution of Element Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide’s “eco-wise” extended stay brand that debuted in 2008, Brian McGuinness says the more things change, the more they stay the same. McGuinness, Starwood’s senior vice president, specialty select brands, notes that even though the growing brand — which currently boasts a portfolio of 11 hotels in the United States and Canada and an announced pipeline of eight properties — is planning expansion in hot new markets such as China, its central mission is still to remain on the forefront of eco-hospitality.
HOTELS: How has Element evolved since the brand’s debut in 2008?
Brian McGuinness: Relative to the brand itself, it really hasn’t changed. It continues to be Starwood’s incubation lab for all things green and ecofriendly, whether it’s kinetic energy where we’re testing bicycles in the fitness center that will charge your smartphone while you’re biking by using your own energy or the fact that each hotel saves about a million gallons of potable water each year because of the fixtures we use. Those are still the tenets of the brand, and we continue to push forward with those. Last year we installed electric vehicle charging stations in all our hotels. So it’s sort of bringing it to the next level and being on that forefront of what it means to be in eco-hospitality.
As I think back, we were very strategic and thoughtful about where we wanted these hotels to go. It had to be the right location, the right partner, the right owner and someone who shared our passion around being ecofriendly. The biggest change in the past year is our desire to go outside the United States. We kind of kept [the brand] close to home; it was the right thing to do for the first four years as we were really looking at not greenwashing this brand and being completely authentic to the green space, if you will. We were excited to move into Canada with Element Vaughn. I was just in China, in Shanghai and Suzhou, which is a great eco-city, to announce our first Element Hotel in China. Then next year we open Frankfurt in Germany.
HOTELS: It sounds like the main tenets of the brand haven’t changed, but what about the target guest?
McGuinness: As I think when we were brainstorming in 2008, [the target guest] was probably the person who drives the Volvo, makes US$150,000 a year, two-plus kids, kind of a white-picket-fence life. What we’re learning is, demographics aside, the psychographic is that person who wants to stay healthy while on the road; we call them “healthy actives.” It’s not just relative to the car they drive, but it’s the fact they read Architectural Digest. They prefer wine over beer. They prefer to read versus watch TV. That is who we’re attracting. I always think of Four Points as a cold beer, Aloft as a martini and Element as a glass of wine.
HOTELS: How do you emphasize what Element is all about in an increasingly crowded marketplace?
McGuinness: In our advertising and our marketing, you might find somebody on a bicycle or somebody on a hiking trail or someone reading in one of our lobbies with a glass of wine — the idea is to be evocative of what the experience is at the hotel through stylized marketing, which I think is very different both in the select-service category as well as extended stay.
We do position ourselves around filtered water, dispensers to save plastics in the bathroom, Energy Star appliances, recycle bins — we do reach out to our target customer that way as well.
It really is a little bit about the re-imagination of the lobby space too. “Bar is back” is what we say in some of the other brands, really creating that lobby space with a dynamic bar. We went another direction with Element with a café culture. You’re not going to hear wild music, it’s going to be cool music, you’re going to have a good glass of wine, you’re going to read the New York Times and relax. Bringing that café culture to the lobby is certainly a different direction.
HOTELS: You mentioned the term “greenwashing.” How do you make sure guests understand Element is really “walking the walk” when it comes to green initiatives?
McGuinness: You build it green from the ground up. All of these hotels have been new-builds. All are going after or have achieved LEED certification. On top of that, we layer in the fact that through low-flow fixtures that the customer would never even know about we save about a million gallons of potable water. The dispensers save about 20,000 little plastic bottles in each of the hotel rooms. The Energy Star appliances and our lighting fixtures save enough energy to power 236 U.S. homes annually. We were very passionate, from our CEO down, that we were not going to greenwash this brand, and we continue to be extremely passionate about that.
HOTELS: How does the brand walk the fine line between emphasizing sustainability initiatives and getting too heavy-handed with the marketing of them?
McGuinness: It is a fine balance to walk. Here’s how we’ve always positioned the brand: We’re a space to live your life. We have great rooms, great natural light, great design and great hospitality. The talent at our hotels is amazing, and the guest experience is similar to a luxury one. We want to deliver that, and by the way, we happen to be doing these green initiatives. We don’t want to be preachy. We have a passion for the environment, and we just want to do the right thing.
HOTELS: How would you characterize Element’s growth strategy in its first few years?
McGuinness: The strategy started with the owner — it has to be someone from a partnership perspective that shared the passion around this brand and would be true to the brand through the build cycle and post-opening in the ongoing operations of the asset.
Two was location. We tend to buy in office parks and corporate parks because our rooms are a bit bigger.
Then we would put the brakes on. There were many deals we didn’t do because they weren’t right for this brand. It’s rare that you launch a brand and you have that support. So far, so good — we were able to stick to the position of right owner, right operator, right location.
HOTELS: As Element move beyond the United States, how is the brand likely to evolve?
McGuinness: Some of the work I was doing in China involved what does Element mean in China? Are we going to have the Chinese government equivalent of LEED certification? Restaurants are necessary particularly in secondary and tertiary markets; often international travelers want to eat within the hotel, and it’s still common culturally both in China and India to go to hotels for events, so restaurants are more commonplace. As we start to move into the UAE often you need room service because culturally sometimes women won’t eat alone, so we do need to have room service in those markets. Music changes slightly. Food options change significantly. We are looking at all of those things. We want to be an international brand, but we have to be culturally relevant.
HOTELS: But will Element’s green message remain at the core of the brand in every market?
McGuinness: Absolutely. The sustainability message is catching on around the world. Quite frankly, to some degree, we’re behind. As I went into Suzhou a couple weeks ago, it’s remarkable that’s an eco-city. The owner’s building that we were having meetings in is essentially LEED-certified Silver.
HOTELS: What are the goals in terms of the number of Element properties that will be open in the coming years?
McGuinness: The numbers aren’t that hard, believe it or not. This is one brand where we have strategically decided to wisely choose our partners, our owners, our operators and the locations. I don’t have a development goal on this brand other than the fact that we want to maintain its purity. We want to maintain its tenets of sustainability, of delivering a great guest stay without compromise. But we don’t have any hard goals.
HOTELS: What do you see as the biggest challenge for the brand to overcome going forward?
McGuinness: I’m not sure it’s a challenge, but I think it’s an opportunity to continue to look at eco-practices and what makes sense in hospitality. Continuing to be innovative is not always easy. What does it mean to achieve those goals not necessarily in the U.S.? What is the brand going to look like in Frankfurt, in Suzhou or India or the Middle East? I think it’s important to maintain a level of innovation and the integrity around this brand while we are expanding globally.