Choice Hotels International’s EMEA division is continuing its brand refreshment programme with the introduction of Sleep Inn to the region.
The group already relaunched its Comfort, Clarion and Quality strands in EMEA earlier this year.
Balance and style
Already established in other regions, design-led lifestyle brand Sleep aims to appeal to the growing number of travellers seeking hotels where they can escape the hectic urban environment to relax, recharge and reset.
This upper midscale concept features the brand’s promise to ‘stay balanced in style’, incorporating Sleep’s inspired by nature design narrative and its focus on helping guests eat and sleep well to achieve a balanced lifestyle throughout their stay. Franchisees can customise Sleep hotels to suit their asset, business model and guest profile.
The brand’s ethos and regional launch reflects the results of research into traveller preferences in the EMEA region, plus scientific evidence on optimal nutrition, fulfilling their desire to find the right balance in their lives. Choice has identified Sleep guests as being adventurous, eco-conscious and wanting to discover new places, valuing socially responsible hotel brands with efficient service, personal touches, considered design, and quality food, drink and facilities.
Accommodation and dining
Sleep’s rooms are designed to create a restorative ambience to enhance guests’ sense of escape, while the curated sleep experience, which includes the ‘design to dream’ bed, should ensure they are well rested at night. This day-night synergy aims to help travellers maintain an equilibrium and recharge while travelling and has been a design package for Sleep Inn in the US for nearly 12 years.
The Sleep Balanced Menu features dishes designed to balance energy levels using ingredients that are seasonal, organic and locally sourced where possible. Created in collaboration with a team of chefs, dieticians and nutritionists, the menu intends to fuse great taste and optimum nutrition.
Refresh strategy
Choice Hotels EMEA CEO Jonathan Mills said: “The launch of Sleep in EMEA is a landmark moment for Choice Hotels in the region as we complete another chapter of our ambitious brand refresh strategy, focused on offering relevant brands that deliver value both to guests and franchisees.
“Industry and guest needs are evolving fast, accelerated by a recalibration of priorities following the pandemic, and we recognise the need to be fit for the future, evolving our portfolio of brands so they are more tuned in to franchisee and customer needs than ever before.”
Wider audience
He continued: “Following our Comfort, Clarion and Quality refreshes announced earlier this year, the launch of the Sleep brand concept in EMEA enables us to reach an even wider audience, appealing to travellers that above all, are looking to maintain a balanced lifestyle while on the road.
“Today, more than ever, it is essential for us to have balance in our lives, and Sleep represents a new generation of hotels where this can be achieved. With its ‘inspired by nature’ design direction, in tune with the rhythms of day and night, its curated sleep experience and its nutritionally rich Sleep Balanced Menu, the brand speaks to us all with its celebration of balance and personal harmony.”
Franchisee design
Mills concluded: “While matching concepts to guest profiles is essential, Choice Hotels EMEA is exclusively designed for franchisees. Delivering brand concepts that are customisable and flexible, ensuring franchisees can fully optimise the performance of their asset, is at the heart of every decision we take. In this respect, the launch of Sleep has untold potential; it not only presents a fresh brand concept to existing franchisees but opens the door to new partners who possess the asset and the audience to capitalise on Sleep’s contemporary appeal.
“Sleep’s launch fuels our passion for supporting the franchisees of today and tomorrow, helping them to achieve their business ambitions and cementing our position as a preferred franchisee hotel partner. With Sleep, we take another giant leap forward in our ambition to transform hospitality franchising, shifting from cookie-cutter models to innovative and agile propositions that deliver for every type of franchisee.”
The Choice Hotels EMEA brand offering now encompasses Clarion, Quality, Comfort, Sleep, and the Ascend Hotel Collection, plans of which Choice reported it will reveal soon.
