Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group has over 1,000 hotels around the world, with their most popular brand being Radisson. While I understand why the hotel group is named the way it is, I’ve always found the branding to be strange, especially with their loyalty program being called Club Carlson. The brand with the most name recognition in their portfolio is Radisson, yet there’s no mention of that in the name of the hotel group or the name of the loyalty program.
Skift reports on how Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group is rebranding as Radisson Hotel Group, which they say is being done to “leverage the wide awareness of the Radisson brand name globally.” You can expect them to rebrand some of their individual hotel collections as well. For example, just weeks ago “Country Inn & Suites by Carlson” was rebranded as “Country Inn & Suites by Radisson,” and “Quorvus Collection” is in the process of being rebranded as “Radisson Collection.”
Radisson Hotel Group also plans on rebranding their Club Carlson loyalty program, though the name of the new program hasn’t yet been announced. My guess is that the loyalty program will also have the word “Radisson” in the name, and might be something like Club Radisson. This will probably be the most major rebranding, given the brand recognition that Club Carlson has built up over the years. While changing Country Inn & Suites from “by Carlson” to “by Radisson” isn’t that major, it’s much more significant to change the name of a loyalty program with millions of members.
Carlson’s updates here aren’t just to branding. They also have a five year plan to become one of the top three hotel companies in the world, with a focus on improving their portfolio in the Americas. As part of this they plan on eliminating at least 10% of their underperforming properties in the Americas, and plan to reposition Radisson as a more premium brand. Furthermore, they plan on investing in hotels in 21 key gateway cities throughout the Americas to create “billboard properties,” mostly under the Radisson Blu brand.
There’s no doubt Radisson has a good reputation in Europe, while in the US they don’t have as good of a reputation, as most of their properties aren’t that great. However, they’re clearly trying to change that.
Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group is now majority owned by HNA Group, the same parent company as Hainan Airlines and other travel and tourism companies. We haven’t seen too many day-to-day changes as a result of that, though long term I imagine we’ll see the brand also grow significantly in Asia.
What do you make of Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group rebranding as Radisson Hotel Group?
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