Skift Q&A: How Aloft Hotels Is Targeting Next Gen Mobile Travelers
Photo Credit: Aloft Hotels brand positioning photo Aloft Hotels
Skift Take
Aloft Hotels was created with a 21st century-native mindset combining every next gen psychographic out there, which could become a blueprint for mid-market corporate hotel brands moving forward.
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In the mid-2000s, Starwood Hotels wanted to recreate the success of its W Hotels brand in the select service market. The company first looked at existing hotel brands for any acquisition opportunities, but none fit the required parameters. So Starwood launched Aloft Hotels in 2008 from the ground up with the same focus on global lifestyle trends as W, yet at a lower price point for the mid-tier, highly-connected hotel guest of the future.
All of the Aloft Hotels brand pillars were clearly designed to answer what's deemed today as Millennial/Gen Y demands, although Starwood executives won't define the brand as such. It's almost like, if you grabbed every hotel trend presently shaping the industry and threw them in a blender, the resulting cocktail would be Aloft.
The development pipeline is on target to surpass 100 properties by the end of 2014, which is very fast considering the globa
