Autograph hotels are exactly like nothing else. Marriott's system can't price them that way.
A London Autograph hotel has about a hundred room types, and Marriott's CEO says its system can't yet price them on what makes each one different
by Markus Busch
The hundred rooms. At a Bank of America investor conference on September 9, Anthony Capuano described an Autograph Collection hotel he had toured in London. Roughly a hundred room types. According to Skift's report of his remarks, none of them can be priced today on its own attributes.
He called the old system "suboptimal" at selling anything beyond the room. The new one is a rebuilt reservation system, property management system and loyalty platform. It is meant to sell each room type on its own features, and to put the restaurant table, the spa appointment and the tee time into the booking path. Marriott first described selling rooms this way on an earnings call in late 2018.
The pitch to your hotel. Autograph's line is "Exactly Like Nothing Else." Marriott aims it, along with Tribute Portfolio and The Luxury Collection, squarely at independent hotels, and nearly half of its signings across Europe, the Middle East and Africa last year were existing hotels converting. The owner keeps the name, the look, the restaurant.
The rooms are part of that character. The corner room with the terrace. The two under the eaves. The suite in what used to be the chapel. Rooms like these go into a system that, by its own CEO's account, still cannot price them on the things that set them apart.
What it means for hotels. An owner weighing a collection flag now has a question Capuano has answered in public. When my rooms go into your system, how many room types does it sell, and on what basis are they priced? And does that change the day I sign, or the day the new system reaches my hotel? If the answer is the second, ask for the date in the contract.
Ask it about your own setup too. The room with the terrace can only earn more if your booking engine and your OTA listings carry it as its own room type, with its own rate.
The limits. The London hotel and its room count come from Capuano's remarks as Skift reported them. Marriott has not named the hotel or said when the new system reaches it. Whether an independent can price room by room depends on its own property management system and booking engine, and the OTAs still fold rooms into their own categories.
Autograph promises a hotel exactly like nothing else. In London, a hundred different rooms are still waiting for a system that can price them that way.
Read also: IHG's new AI is attribute-based selling finally finding its interface
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