When Being a Budget Hotel Chain Wasn’t Enough: How Asia’s RedDoorz Risks Losing Its Focus
Photo Credit: This is a RedDoorz hotel: The first Sunerra, a new midscale brand. Photo: RedDoorz
Skift Take
A new brand, Sunerra, takes RedDoorz into the midscale arena of three and four stars hotels. Not only that, it will manage these hotels. Can RedDoorz do it, or will the move dilute its focus as a budget player and eat up resources?
A move by RedDoorz into the midscale hotel segment, and on a management contract basis, takes the Southeast Asian budget hotel chain on a new trajectory. But it's one that seems fraught with risks.
RedDoorz has launched its first Sunerra hotel, a four-star property in Cikarang, 35 kilometers east of Indonesia's Jakarta, owned by Global Pilar Sukses. The hotel has 142 rooms, including suites and executive rooms, swimming pool, spa, fitness center and a ballroom that fits 400 people, among others.
This, from the humble one-star RedDoorz hotel, which has up to 30 rooms and no amenities. With budget properties, all that is required is a branding and technology stack for distribution, and no management on RedDoorz's part.
Increasingly, RedDoorz is looking more like the traditional hotel chain with multi-brands. Sunerra came after Sans, which it launched in November last year as a “design-inspired economy lifestyle brand.” In February 2020, RedDoorz also introduced KoolKost, a
