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You're Staying Where? Hotel Chains Launch 24 New Brands

If you are feeling out of it because you don't recognize all those hotel brands on display in the U.S. city you're visiting, you're not alone. It's hard to keep track when an average of one new brand a month gets slapped on building signs. According to a study from PriceWaterhouseCoopers released last month, "there were a total of 24 new hotel brand launches in the U.S. in 2005 and 2006, which is the largest number of brand introductions in a two-year period since 1989."

The Wall Street Journal picked up on this interesting facet: "In luxury hotels alone, 11 brands have been launched, including the Waldorf-Astoria Collection by Hilton Hotels Corp., and LXR by an affiliate of Blackstone Group." (Story reprint here.)

Why so many new brands? We think it's partly because the old ones are viewed as, well, old. The PWC study highlights "the increasing representation and influence of Gen-Xers and Millennials." As in, "We want a hotel that's not geared to our buttoned-up dad."

Some of these brands we don't even recognize and some are little more than a hotel version of vaporware at this point (aloft is in the virtual world of Second Life, but not yet in the real world.) Others we've covered here in some fashion or another, including James, Palomar, and Hyatt Place--a rebranding of the old Amerisuites chain.

The downside of this is more confusion and further segmentation of an already super-segmented market for your lodging dollar. The upside is that there are more places for you to earn and use points in a hotel chain's frequent guest program.

[Photo: late night movie]

Related Stories:
· Number of New U.S. Hotel Brand Launches in 2005/2006 [PriceWaterhouseCoopers]