HAMILTON, Bermuda—After nearly 40 years brandishing one of the more iconic names in travel, Orient-Express Hotels Limited is rebranding its collection of 45 hotel, rail and river cruise experiences under the new Belmond umbrella.
The move will connect the company’s disparate assets and travel experiences, driving increased customer awareness and cross-visitation, said President and CEO John M. Scott on Monday during a call with investors and analysts.
“I believe there’s a real opportunity for us to enhance our revenue generation by making it easier for our guest to navigate our unique luxury travel portfolio. … We believe we can accomplish this best with our new brand, Belmond,” he said.
Ralph Aruzza, chief sales and marketing officer, said Orient-Express’ greatest asset—its diverse portfolio of unique travel experiences—was also one of its greatest weaknesses.
Communicating the connection between each hotel and safari and river cruise proved difficult, he explained. Thus, past marketing outreach focused on individual properties as opposed to the Orient-Express portfolio.
Cross visitation between properties suffered as a result, accounting for only 3% of all visits, he said.
“Our cross-visitor guest, although low in terms of numbers, actually spends on average 13% more for a stay than a one-stay guest in our group. … We look to at least double that cross-visitation percentage during the next few years in this effort,” Aruzza said.
The goal is to build familiarity regardless of location so guests seek out the Belmond brand wherever they travel.
Orient-Express Hotels Limited, which is still the company’s official name pending a changeover to Belmond later this year, expects to invest $5 million during 2014 in marketing and promotion and $10 million during the subsequent four years.
Executives were hesitant to invest as much in past marketing outreach because they didn’t have full control of the Orient-Express trademark, which it licensed from French transportation company SNCF. The company will terminate without cost or penalty the existing license for hotel use, with the exception of the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train which will retain the license long term.
Third-party management
With increased familiarity should come increased interest in the company’s budding third-party management platform, Scott said.
“I believe that this is an important step forward and will enhance our ability to generate new third-party management opportunities,” he said.
While he denied the existing brand hierarchy was a “material barrier” to that effort, Scott admitted it didn’t help.
“Our management opportunities have also asked for the opportunity to have an enhanced branding option, which Belmond will provide us with. This is our future and will enhance our ability to grow on that front. …
“There is a class of owner that is seeking a brand that will enable them to immediately hit the market running with enhanced sales and marketing distribution. That’s what our umbrella brand Belmond will enable us to do,” he said.
Executives are targeting key gateway, urban markets such as London, New York and Rome, which expands the existing portfolio’s footprint in leisure-oriented destinations. They’re under no time deadlines or time constraints, however.
“I’m about quality and not about quantity,” Scott said, acknowledging it will take some time to gain traction in these new markets.
Belmond rollout
Orient-Express Hotels Limited rolls out the Belmond name effective 10 March.
The move is the culmination of a months-long creative partnership with marketing firm AgencySacks that saw some 650 potential brand names thrown into the mix. Executives narrowed that heap down to six for comprehensive testing, which ran the gamut from focus groups of affluent travelers to linguistic reviews “to make sure that our name did not mean something negative or did not have any embarrassing connotations in certain names and cultures,” Aruzza said.
Belmond, which is derived from Latin for “beautiful world,” emerged the winner.
The circular logo suggests the company’s global reach and the unique world of travel experiences it creates, Aruzza explained.
Partner outreach already has begun, he said, followed by the creative cutover with the first brand-wide promotion beginning 10 March. Business-to-business road shows in key feeder markets will then take place.
The company will change its ticker symbol to BEL thereafter, followed by the gradual rollout of on-property brand touch points in the second quarter and the company’s first ever global media campaign in the third quarter.
“The next big thing for us is customer relation management and engagement, and that includes the adaption in the early stages of a recognition program that you’ll see very late this year, and ultimately that will lead … to a loyalty program based on our brand,” Aruzza said.
“We have a great opportunity to drive incremental revenue and customer loyalty with the Belmond brand,” Scott said.
“It resonates and connects our unique, one-of-kind port of luxury travel experience,” he added. “It complements the name of our individual iconic properties. And finally, it provides us with full control, flexibility and confidence to strategically invest in the brand and important sales and marketing activities that will promoted our individual properties.”