What should have been a simple task of matching descriptions to the appropriate hotel brand, was instead an impossible challenge. The world’s largest hotel groups, in an effort to rapidly grow have taken shortcuts with fundamental branding. By introducing new, poorly differentiated, lifestyle lodging brands the problem has reached epidemic proportions. In most cases, the major hotel brands do not successfully differentiate themselves based on product, scale or personality traits. As intermediaries continue to grow distribution market share, this could become a problem.

The world’s largest hotel chains have recently embarked on an unprecedented period of introducing new lodging brands. Hotel brands differentiate themselves through a combination of physical attributes, service delivery processes and marketing communications that create a unique character in the minds of travelers. Unfortunately, the language used to describe the hotel brands on the hotel websites does a poor job of creating a unique or highly defensible consumer value proposition. This quiz challenges readers to match a genericized description with the correct hotel brand.