Boutique Hotels vs. Chain Hotels - Essay Example

The variety of kinds of hotels offers a selection according to one’s preferences. The availability of chain hotels and boutique hotels enable the customer to consider the selections and what each can offer. Chain and boutique hotels may be compared in terms of branding, experience and value for money. Hotel branding is a fundamental aspect of providing a distinct characteristic to the establishment. Historically, the hotel industry is an interesting study of the market and the ups and downs of the economy.

Hotel franchising is widely attributed to Kemmons Wilson who founded the ever popular Holiday Inns by offering the brand to investors who are willing franchisees. The franchisor, in turn, provides for a centralized development of the product that is consistent with the franchise name in all of its important aspects. Consequently, others followed suit and the Mariott, Radisson, Hyatt, Ramada, Hilton and Howard Johnson came into existence. Perceptively, brand awareness for these chain hotels yields a customer base that patronizes the brand as a whole but with concurrent disadvantaged for the franchisees and the franchisor (Langois 7-9).

On the other hand, independent hotels such as boutique hotels thrive by providing a unique brand that caters to a particular niche in the market by taking advantage of a good location, a personalized level of service and a different offering specifically for its target market. Technology has afforded boutique hotels to develop their individual brands to compete with the encompassing scope that chain hotels have through internet marketing tools and with the help of organizations like Leading Hotels of the World and Preferred Hotels that promote them (ibid 13-14).

Subsequent to branding, the experience of staying in a hotel is a main goal for engaging the market. Ensuring that the clientele are satisfied with their accommodations and that the companies offer the amenities that are necessary for a comfortable stay is the main thrust of the industry. The emergence of boutique hotels as a suitable alternative to well-known chain hotels had become more prevalent in the recent years. These boutique hotels are independent and usually owned by a single or individual group of people venturing in the business.

They are smaller in scale with around 100 rooms but where they lack in size they make up for in service as they are able to customize a personal kind of service because of the ideal number of guests (Balekjian and Sarheim 2). The difference between the definition of a boutique and chain hotel is difficult to categorically sum-up. Boutique hotels are associated as being design-oriented and offering a unique experience than the typical notion of a hotel while international chains have been known to be “standardized business hotels and scrutinized for providing consistency at the risk of being impersonal at each location and property” (ibid 3).

A particular market group may be more at ease with chain hotels with homogeneous services while some may be more obliging to stay at a place that is distinctively with its own flare. Many new innovations are emerging in the hotel industry to answer the varied growing needs of the clientele. The boutique hotel sector is proving itself as a formidable substitute to the conventional hotel chains that are common sights in many destinations. Realizing the most value for money is now a major category in how