Rosewood

Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, L.L.C, was established in 1979 by the Caroline Rose Hunt Trust Estate. This collection of high end luxury hotels has up to 2004 implemented an individual brand/collection brand strategy built around the “sense of place” concept. This concept tailors their hotels to capture the local architecture, history and culture, differentiating them from corporate branded hotels. Despite Rosewood’s performance of having the highest average per room daily room rate and revenue, and recognition amongst travel agents, brand recognition amongst their guests is low. President and CEO, John Scott, and vice president of sales and marketing, Robert Boulogne, are considering a new corporate brand strategy(CBS) aiming to promote their corporate brand. Rosewood serves a niche market which is a small subset of the whole luxury industry of sophisticated customers, who value the distinct exclusive ‘collection’ hotel of the overall luxury market. The goal of the new strategy is to boost brand recognition, increase multi-property stays per guest, realize growth potential and increase their customer lifetime value.
Rosewood’s current focus strategy is on the unique experience in a niche market. By implementing a CBS - they are going to a differentiation strategy that provides unique local experience to the customer and targets the whole luxury industry, which significantly increases their customer pool. Based on Boston Consulting Group’s Growth- share matrix, which strictly looks at market share and growth, Rosewood’s growth rate and overall market share place them in the question mark’s category. This indicates that Rosewood provides a unique product/service the market wants and has the potential to grow. In order to expand their customer pool and market share, Rosewood needs to grow/develop product, advertising, and/or distribution which they will be able to do by implementing the CBS. The first step in validating this strategy is to perform an assessment of