2008-08-11

Lifestyle vs boutique hotels

Slightly off-kilter post here, but something that came up when I met the kind folk at Mr & Mrs Smith a few months back are the definitions being used by hotels.

Prompted by my questioning, Mr & Mrs Smith promised to write a post on their blog to explain why an establishment might be called a 'boutique hotel'.

The detailed post gives a few examples of what could be ticked off on a list of boutique-esque qualities and reels off a number of its own hotels which meet the criteria.

The issue here is that industry people, let alone consumers, do not understand the difference between a 'boutique' or 'lifestyle' hotel.

There are bound to be dozens of differences between the two, but to many people it sounds a lot like marketing twaddle created for glossy travel magazines and Sunday newspapers.

Oh yes, darling, we stayed at the most amazing lifestyle hotel last weekend. Absolutely marvellous.

Huh!

What do you mean? My lifestyle or your lifestyle?

It really could mean anything at all.

The problem is one of ensuring that customers can differentiate between certain types of hotels, beyond the marketing puff.

The wholly unscientific - but often interesting - Google test shows that "boutique hotel" claims 9.54 million results, with "lifestyle hotel" rummaging up 8.28 million.

One wonders how many hotels appear in both?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

This post was originally posted by Kevin May @ Travolution Blog.
> Read the original post here