The Hindu Business Line : ‘Marketing tie-ups between hotel chains enhance brand awareness’

Chennai, Oct. 10 In the first week of September, the Taj group of hotels announced a marketing tie-up with the Okura group of hotels from Japan, which according to the former, would support and enhance the representation of the two brands across the globe.

Later in the month, while commenting on the talks between The Indian Hotels Company Ltd, which owns the Taj brand, and Orient-Express Hotels Ltd to form an alliance, Mr R.K. Krishna Kumar, Vice-Chairman, IHCL, said: “Over the past few years, we have pursued the objective of growing the Taj brand internationally. As part of this strategy, we have been pursuing alliances and relationships with leading hotel groups that have not yet set up a presence in India, but have secured leadership positions in various geographies.”

So, what is the value that drives marketing associations? Are such alliances relevant at a time when the Internet is emerging as an important reservations gateway?

Mr Sanjoy Pasricha, Vice-President (Sales and Marketing), The Leela group, says marketing alliances are a good tool to enhance brand awareness. Such tie-ups also serve as a tool for global marketing. Based on the nature of the alliance drawn up, the participating hotels could offer their clients, especially those covered under loyalty programmes, guest recognition programmes. Guest could also collect and exhaust frequent flyer points on the frequent flyer programmes run by the participating hotels.

The Leela group has an exclusive sales and marketing tie-up with Kempinski for its existing properties in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Kerala. Besides, its upcoming properties in Udaipur, Chennai and Gurgaon would also be run in a tie-up with Kempinski.

As for the efficacy of such alliances at a time when people were logging on to the Internet to zero in on the best deals available with travel portals, Mr Pasricha said brand familiarity paid off on the Net also and helped to cut through the web-clutter.

According to Ms Sushama Kambhampati, an analyst tracking the hospitality vertical at Crisil Research, marketing tie-ups enhanced brand awareness and also gave the hotels concerned access to each other’s client base by way of loyalty programmes.

Mr Premal Zaveri of HVS, a Delhi-based hospitality consultancy, said marketing alliances were usually forged between hotel brands in different countries with the aim of leveraging their presence in international markets.

No risk in such alliances

According to him, the Taj group had earlier tied up with the Raffles group of Singapore, from which it had accrued good business. Any branded hotel, he said, would have seven-eight such programmes on at the same time. Marketing tie-ups were a financially viable way of promoting a hotel or a chain in a new market, and there was no risk involved in forging such tie-ups.

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