Almost a decade after the aparthotel model entered the market and disrupted the hotel industry, Guy Stehlik, CEO of BON Hotels, says the industry is ripe and ready for yet another disruption.
“I believe that this disruption is going to take place with fun, experiential, millennial-branded hotels, which kind of upend the traditional hotel paradigms and turn them over,” Stehlik told Travel News.
“I have experienced some of that at hotels I have stayed at recently in Europe. All those boring, traditional hotel concepts that we have had for the last 100 years are turned upside down into something fun and I think that is definitely what has been missing.”
One mother, many brands
There’s another trend that Stehlik points out – the explosion of many different brands under one mother brand, where the big names have introduced a host of smaller brands, each one to suit the needs of a particular market.
“We have seen that since the COVID pandemic there needs to be an appropriate brand with the appropriate experience for the appropriate market,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter if you have five or six hotels in a hotel group, you cannot box all of those kinds of components into one mother brand like we used to 20 to 30 years ago.”
An example that Stehlik provided was the Moxy Hotel concept, a very trendy brand.
“I recently stayed at a Moxy in Paris. They have certainly got the millennial traveller knuckled down. But what I found interesting was that it certainly was not only millennial travellers that were staying at the hotel. Older travellers were also there, indicating that people across the whole spectrum of the market are staying at these kinds of hotels.”
Aparthotels
South Africa has its own version of the aparthotel concept, which has only recently become popular. However, Stehlik says there is only one group that really gets it right, the others are just based on an oversized hotel room and certainly do not offer traditional aparthotel services.
“Those that are doing it right, I think, are having success, but those that are not doing it right are going to bomb out,” says Stehlik. “There are going to be more players in this market and we are obviously concentrating on doing that as well.”
BON Hotels’ Protea by Marriott Hotel Cape Town Durbanville has a very popular apart hotel extension to the hotel.
Digital first
Stehlik pointed to the digitisation trends that are out there, such as:
- smart TVs,
- good WiFi,
- wireless charging in the room,
- the ability to order in-room dining on WhatsApp,
- the ability to communicate with management electronically, and
- the removal of phones and printed collateral in the rooms.
Stehlik says South Africa has been slow in taking up this trend, something that needs to change if we are going to keep up with the other markets.
Cancellation policies
With the changes seen in travel patterns, there has been a relaxation of the traditional booking and cancellation policies, reckons Stehlik.
This includes more moderation given to aspects like arrival time and late check out – these days, in some cases travellers are not seeing additional charges for these.
In terms of cancellation policies, Stehlik says: “We are seeing a lot more sympathy as far as cancellation policies are concerned, although again, those changes are not necessarily being seen in South Africa, despite it being a world-wide trend.”
