FILA, Toy Story, and Hello Kitty Latest to Jump on Hotel Branding Trend
5 min readWhen the pandemic brought about the loss of interacting in-man or woman with your favorite manufacturers, numerous faithful clients surrendered retail procuring and indoor eating encounters. But rising from that drought, the hospitality industry is looking at an growing range of client brands leveraging the lack of actual physical business enterprise and investing into a new kind of experiential promoting — their very own hotels.
In 2020, Skift identified as a megatrend the hurry by consumer manufacturers into the hotel organization. Right now, despite a pandemic, buyer brand names are continuing to dive into the hotel sector for a slew of explanations, the very first getting to appeal to a new viewers that they’ve hardly ever catered to just before. Some latest entrants incorporate FILA, Toy Story, Good day Kitty and Bvlgari.
“In phrases of for every capita invest on vacation, the millennials are catching up to the Boomers,” reported Chekitan S. Dev, a tourism professor at Cornell College. “But there is also a provide imbalance of hotel brands that enchantment to the millennial.”
A speedily increasing movement is using location amid legacy hoteliers and shopper makes alike, in hopes to attraction to a youthful group who is know-how and style and design savvy but nonetheless needs to fork out realistic price ranges, in accordance to Dev.
“Consumer brands are seeking to rework their model graphic in an immersive and experiential way,” mentioned Dev. “They are concentrating on the millennial industry by emphasizing off-conquer and obtainable locations, present day and comfy layout, scaled-down and more useful rooms, less and focused features, cutting-edge and easy-to-use technological know-how, exciting and hospitable services, and multi-useful general public spaces.”
While some corporations are making an attempt to concentrate on new audiences, other folks are working to continue to keep loyal ones.
“For most brands, it is currently being equipped to hook up with your consumer on a distinctive degree,” mentioned Kirk Pederson, president of Sightline Hospitality. “Offering your customer a place to lay their head at night is extra intimate than other approaches of link, it’s at the heart of someone’s ritual.”
Even though legacy inns and hoteliers are continue to drowning in aftermath of the pandemic on hospitality, some of these consumer brands are not as involved. Evo, an out of doors sporting goods and retail enterprise that recently opened an journey resort in Salt Lake City, experienced income that thrived in the course of the pandemic and seen this as an additional option to acquire brand name exposure.
“Many of these brand names had initiatives that were several years in the building,” mentioned Pederson. “To say that there is no issue [of Covid] is probably also much, but they don’t search at it the exact same way hoteliers or buyers would. There’s a different angle.”
The business observed a surge of shopper makes pushing into the resort sector again in 2020, but 2022 brought a new bout of brand name innovation in accommodations. Right here is a checklist of branded resort activities to be expecting in the coming a long time:
FILA
Hyatt has unveiled ideas to partner with ANTA Group to open the world’s 1st FILA-branded hotel. With more than 100 years of heritage, the world sports activities manufacturer is hoping to attractiveness to high-finish people by fusing features of fitness and trend.
FILA Home Shanghai will be created in Shanghai’s West Hongqiao Enterprise District, an region set up as a center of global trade, with a vivid community of company and field. In accordance to a assertion by Hyatt, it “is envisioned to be a spot for sports retail as properly as a area to showcase the most up-to-date developments in sports activities clothing.” This partnership marks however a different addition to the JdV manufacturer by Hyatt portfolio and is predicted to open up doorways to attendees in 2024.
Good day Kitty

Hyatt also not too long ago declared strategies for the initial Hello there Kitty-branded resort, set to open up in 2025 as element of the 52-acre theme park Sanya Howdy Kitty Resort. The vacation resort, made in collaboration with Hong Kong-primarily based Keyestone Group, will be situated in Sanya, the preferred resort town in the southern province of Hainan.
Another product or service of Hyatt’s JdV portfolio, this 221-space lodge will characteristic areas adorned with the iconic Hi Kitty design and will offer you amenities which include three signature dining establishments and bars, a themed ballroom, swimming pool, and spa.
Toy Story
On April 5, Tokyo Disney Vacation resort at last opened doors to the new Toy Story themed resort, after a extended-awaited hold off owing to the pandemic. With 595 visitor rooms and 11 tales, this lodge is a single of 5 themed-resorts on the Tokyo assets, but the initial to be centered on a single film and labeled as a “moderate-class” vacation resort. The new addition follows its Chinese predecessor, the Toy Story Resort situated in the Shanghai Disney Vacation resort, which opened in 2016.
This is not the to start with time we have heard of accomodations at sites like Disney, but earlier choices stayed in the realm of resorts, isolated lodges, themed rooms, or special suites. These newer hotels are not only branded to a incredibly distinct solitary theme, but are a lot more loyal to the acquainted lodge knowledge.
Bvlgari
Jewelry dwelling Bvlgari isn’t the only luxury model we have noticed delve into the lodge and hospitality entire world. Palazzo Versace, in Australia’s Gold Coastline, was the initially lodge to be launched by a manner brand in 2000. In 2016, The Armani Resort Dubai was named as the winner of the The Environment Luxurious Resort Awards, and quite a few luxury manufacturers, like Dior and Shiseido, have showcased collaborations with lodges to offer you branded suites or spas to their guests.
Nevertheless, Bvlgari’s Accommodations and Resorts is seeking to acquire it a step further and be a chief in luxurious hospitality by consistently announcing their determination to enlargement. Final December, Bvlgari opened Bvlgari Lodge Paris as the seventh installation of the Bvlgari Inns & Resorts selection. The Bvlgari Lodge Moscow is established to open this year, which will shortly be followed by Rome and Tokyo in 2023, then Miami Seashore in 2024, and Los Angeles in 2025.
Atari
In early 2020, gaming organization Atari announced a partnership with main innovation company GSD Group to prepare Atari Motels, “a modern-day hospitality expertise inspired by gaming culture”. The hotels, which will appear like a artificial but immersive gamer’s fantasy, are meant to permit attendees practical experience the timeless entire world of classic and contemporary gaming tradition, made by a multidisciplinary workforce hoping to intersect elements of esports, entertainment, and hospitality.
The flagship, which is set open this yr in Las Vegas, will be created by globally-renowned architecture and design and style agency Gensler. It will have near to 500 rooms, in addition to potentially-residential penthouses.