Starwood Ramps up Build of Element Hotels Extended-Stay Brand
Skift Take
The need to meet LEED certification for every Element Hotel has slowed the development pipeline, but will it pay off in the future as more consumers demand greener accommodations?
The new Element Frankfurt Hotel officially opened this month near the city’s airport, making this the first non-U.S. destination for Starwood Hotels’ sustainable "eco-wise" extended-stay brand.
Element Hotels is one of Starwood’s three select service brands, which together make up almost 50% of the hotel group’s development pipeline across all nine flags. With only 14 hotels in operation since the brand launched in 2008, Element’s room count trails far behind Four Points by Sheraton, which opened its 200th property this year, and Aloft Hotels, scheduled to open its 100th hotel in 2015. Aloft also launched in 2008.
However, Starwood is planning to more than double the present Element inventory with 16 new hotels scheduled to open by the end of 2017, including new assets in Suzhou and Zhangjiakou (bordering Shanghai and Beijing), three in Canada, and one each in London and Amsterdam. New locations include both urban core and airport/business park environments situated in first and second tier cities ranging from Boston to Bozeman.
According to Brian McGuinness, senior vice president of Starwood's specialty select brands, one of the reasons for Element’s more relaxed rollout is because all Element Hotels are required to be U.S. Green Building Council LEED certified, which can be even more tricky in international markets where a LEED equivalent must be obtained.
Also, in order for Element to scale globally and adapt to a wide range of market conditions, a lot of operational processes revolving around sustainability have had to be fine-tuned repeatedly to deliver a cost-effective guest experience.
“The global customer isn't ready to p
