Renaissance Hotels Show Local Pride

People generally get hotel rooms because they need a place to sleep. The location of the hotel is more often than not selected for convenience than for the hotel itself. So Renaissance hotels, which is owned by Marriott, is going to play up the surrounding areas of its hotels in its new ad campaign.

The hope, of course, is to attract a younger, hipper market that is mostly visiting due to business travel. To do this, Renaissance introduced a “Navigator” program back in 2010 “to provide tips about the hotels’ surroundings,” the New York Times reports. The hotels have attempted to host more musical events in the past two years of both local and national acts, such as Bruno Mars.

A handful of employees at each hotel (such as Omar Bennett at the Renaissance Times Square) are identified as navigators and it is there job to help people find local activities and events that suit their desires. The Navigator info will be making its way to Renaissance’s Facebook and Twitter channels at the start of May and a mobile app can't be far behind.

Instead of going back to their usual marketing partners, Renaissance turned to agencies that focus on lifestyle advertising, the Times notes. Before this, Renaissance hadn’t gotten any kind of major advertising. Now they’ve got $15 million to spend this year on pushing the brand.

Andrew Sacks, president of AgencySacks, a New York branding and marketing agency, is all for Renaissance including “a little patisserie down the street from the hotel” in its ad rather than “vaguely talking about being local,” the Times notes. “It makes it believable.”