Earlier today, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) announced that it was acquiring Kimpton Hotels & Resorts for $430 Million, creating what IHG CEO Richard Solomons described as “the world’s largest boutique hotel business.”
Some questions are not as simple as they look… Like matching 100 hotel brands
Photo Credit: Duncan Hull (cc|flickr)
Despite the hotel business tallying record performance, the opening of new hotel supply continues to lag demand growth. However, this is not stopping the major hotel groups from creating new brands and making acquisitions to expand their empires.
Hotel groups frequently explain that they create new hotel brands to address the needs of the modern traveler. Some more jaded industry observers might characterize that as code for optimizing market coverage without infringing on the territories defined by franchise agreements for their existing brands.
From the chain perspective, more hotel rooms in a given market grows fee revenue; rationalized, it is always better to compete with oneself than the enemy. For the individual hotel owner, that is generally not the case – revenues streams are personal – and property specific.
So, as an intellectual challenge to industry insiders and frequent travelers, here is a little test – Match the Hotel Brand with it’s Parent Hotel Chain. Simple, right? Prove it…
To make the quiz a bit more challenging, the “Hotels and Resorts,” “Inns and Suites” and “by Brand” qualifiers were all removed unless they were necessary to eliminate an ambiguity between brand names. Also, to make it a bit more difficult, whenever a hotel group name was used in combination with another term, a generic [Brand] replaced the identifiable name.
The more demanding test would have involved asking respondents to describe each brand, or worse, differentiate them from the other brands. Sadly, many hotel group executives are hard pressed to accomplish that for their own brand portfolios…
All of the 100 brands listed are real and belong to one of the 10 major hotel groups listed. No cheating – it will be much more fun to learn which brand relationships are best understood, and which are most often confused.
The winner will be the individual who pairs the most brands correctly, in the shortest period of time.
Good Luck.
The Quiz is Now Completed/Closed
For the full answer key, please see Hotel Brand Matching Test Results
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNER – Kerry Boatwright with an impressive score of 94 of 100.
Kerry narrowly defeated John McAuliffe, who also scored 94, but took a mere 20 seconds longer to complete the quiz.
It doesn’t get much closer than that…
The winning prize will be the heartfelt congratulations and awestruck envy of the global hotel industry… plus a personal sense of a job well done.
The game will close at 23:59 US Central Time on Wednesday, December 24, 2014. Santa’s Elves (having nothing else to do, and wanting to keep busy) will post the correct answers and winner’s name on Thursday, December 25th.
About Robert Cole
