Starwood: feel the service — feel the life

In 2013 one of the largest companies in Russian and international hotel industry, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. became ABT partner. At the moment more than 1200 hotels and resorts in 100 countries on all continents are run under the Starwood brand. Commitment to traditions and service of the highest grade allow the company to hold its leading positions on the luxury travel market for many decades. Anna Kolebaeva, Business Development director in Russia and CIS, speaks about Starwood’s success, the company’s exclusive brands, loyalty programs and special services for business travellers.

— Anna, what hotel chains does the Starwood brand include?

— At the moment Starwood includes 9 exclusive brands, each with its own identity and philosophy. The unique character of each hotel chain combined with the highest service standards makes our hotels recognizable and allows every traveller to choose his own brand that meets all his requirements and wishes.

Conventionally, our hotels can be divided into 3 categories. The highest service and comfort standards (Luxury, Upper Upscale) are offered in the hotel group that includes St. Regis, The Luxury Collection and W Hotels. The next segment includes traditional 5 star hotels: Sheraton, Le Meridien, Westin. And finally, hotels in the medium price segment are: Aloft, Four Points by Sheraton and Element.

— Many believe that luxury hotels focus solely on well-off elderly people who associate the notion of luxury not only with traditions, but often with some tribute to the past, which may be expressed, for example, in florid architecture or interiors. Are these beliefs real or are they merely a myth?

— It is a myth to a large extent, of course. For example, one of the flagship brands in our luxury hotels group — W — is a chain of 43 ultramodern design hotels. The «W» philosophy is «Life as Impression». That’s why design, music, light and aromas — every detail in these hotels is aimed at making the guest utter an excited «Wow» when he crosses the hotel threshold.

If we speak about traditional hotels of the highest category, they include such brands as St. Regis and The Luxury Collection, whose history goes back over several decades. For example, in St. Regis a very spectacular tradition has been kept over the years — sabrage, when a cork in a bottle of champagne is cut with a sabre in front of our guests. Other traditions are kept as well: after-dinner tea, hand-rolled cigarettes, and personal butler services. By the way, it’s St. Regis where «Bloody Mary» was invented and it has been the brand’s drink up to now. The most luxurious and exclusive resorts are chosen for such hotels, as well as the most important metropolitan cities in terms of their impact on the world economy: Singapore, Washington, New-York. I hope, Moscow will be among them one day.

Some Luxury Collection hotels are even included into the UNESCO World Heritage list — after all, according to this brand’s philosophy, only hotels with rich cultural and historic heritage are included. Here everything deserves attention and keeps the imprints of the past — from architecture to interiors. Only in The Luxury Collection you can find original antique things: old furniture, interior items with a 100-year history. The Moscow «National» hotel also refers to this hotel chain.

— Is the category of business tourists of interest to you?

— Most Starwood hotels are situated in large cities and over 70% of city hotels clients are business travellers. So this client category is not only of interest, it is very important for us. First of all, because business tourism is one of the most profitable tourism sectors: business travellers spend daily 3 times as much as ordinary tourists.

— Do business travellers have specific demands?

— This is a very demanding category of clients, they have certain preferences when choosing a hotel. Above all, they prefer hotels with convenient location. Businessmen choose hotels not far from offices or city business centres. Transport accessibility plays an important role as well. That is why the demand for hotels near airports has been very high lately.

High speed Internet is an obligatory service for any business hotel. Preferably it should be free WiFi, accessible in any part of the hotel. Enough sockets (and their convenient location in the room is more important), adapters and stationery let you feel comfortable and lack nothing. After all, the hotel room replaces office during the business trip.

We live in the high technology époque and if we speak about the latest trends in business travel demand, I would point out the following: IP-telephony and availability of video conference services.

Also there has been a rise in demand for apartments for long-term business trips lately.

— Which of the nine Sheraton brands is the most popular with business travellers? Can you offer this type of guests some special services?

— I would not distinguish a certain hotel chain that meets business travellers` demands more than the others. As I have said, all our brands are different and each one has a unique range of services. For example, W-hotel rooms are fully automated, which saves time calling the hotel departments to order a certain service.

In Sheraton lobbies there is a mini business centre — Link@Sheraton — with computers and printers, where you can access Internet freely and any time, for example, to send a letter or to check stock exchange quotations. According to Starwood research, up to 95% of guests use this service.

Besides, business travellers find our special exercise program very useful — Sheraton Fitness, which was worked out by our company together with leading world trainers. Business tourists are always physically active, so it is very important to have a hotel fitness centre. When they travel around the world, they can not be supervised by a certain fitness instructor. Sheraton provides such an opportunity: when a traveller starts his program in one hotel of the chain, he can continue it in any hotel of this brand in any country of the world.

Westin hotels offer their guests a «Heavenly Bed» with an exclusive orthopedic mattress. After a hard working day every businessman needs a good rest, indeed.

— Do you run any actions or events aimed at attracting business tourists?

— Experience shows, that loyalty programs are among the most efficient instruments of attracting tourists. Business travellers are not an exception. Starwood Hotels & Resorts offers a special Starwood Preferred Guest program which implies cumulating points for staying, that can then be exchanged for free nights and promotional flights with open dates. There are several levels of this program — Basic, Gold and Platinum, they offer different privileges.

Soon Starwood Preferred Guest program is going to include new discounts up to 30% in more than 870 restaurants and bars of the global network. This offer will be available in more than 400 Starwood hotels all over the world.

We have worked out a customized program particularly for MICE-specialists, and we recommend corporate customers joining Starwood Preferred Business program: in this case the account is opened and points are cumulated for a company, but at the same time any of its employees staying in our hotel automatically joins the SPB program.

In order to attract corporate customers, Starwood Hotels & Resorts regularly takes part in the largest world fairs, such as IMEX in Frankfurt and EIBTM in Barcelona. We organize hosted buyers trips and fam tours.

In my opinion, the brand reputation itself helps attract business tourists. That’s why the hotel should, above all, maintain the level of services and quality it declares, which is the basis of its successful functioning. If they are not provided, no discounts or special offers can attract guests to the hotel.

— How do you assess the potential of business travellers as Starwood customers?

— According to expert opinion and research, that predict business travel growth in 2013, I can say that this segment potential is very high. This is also proved by growing demand for rooms and corporate events on the part of our partners.

It appears to me that demand for luxury Starwood hotels is going to grow, because today’s business travellers are so busy working, that they hardly ever have time for rest. So many companies tend to raise the hotel category in order to encourage and stimulate their employees. Medium level managers are offered high quality 4 star hotels — Four Points by Sheraton, Aloft and Element.

In order to observe travel policy, our corporate clients often set the maximum price and specify certain services that should be included into the room rate — for instance, only breakfast, Internet and dry clean. And Starwood decides, whether we can offer this price range or not. If compromise is not achieved, we offer another hotel of our chain in the same city.

In general, I can state the following: if luxury hotels were not so much in demand with business travellers, managing companies would not invest such huge funds in their construction.

— When did Starwood enter the Russian market and what are your plans for the near future?

— Starwood has been present in Russia since 1998. Today our brand owns 2 Moscow hotels — Sheraton Palace Moscow Hotel and the National Hotel, the latter is included into the Luxury Collection chain, and W St. Petersburg, which opened in 2011. Besides, we have quite ambitious expansion plans: this year we are going to open a second hotel in Moscow — Sheraton Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport. In general, hotel construction near airports is the main trend in today’s hotel industry. There’s a growing demand for such hotels on the part of guests, who come to stay for 1-2 days. As research shows, corporate travel segment is much larger in such hotels than in hotels situated within the city boundaries. That’s why we announced a new hotel in Vnukovo in 2016 — the hotel will belong to the Four Points by Sheraton brand. We are also trying to embrace regions: hotels in Perm, Rostov-on-Don and Sochi are in our plans for the next 3 years.