What makes you want to stay in a hotel?
Is it the promise of a beautiful room with a super comfortable bed?
Or is it the facilities – an infinity pool, spa, gym or garden?
Or perhaps it’s the food and drink.
Or the service.
Or the location.
Or the level of luxury.
All the above are perfectly valid reasons to select one hotel over another.
A less valid reason? Its level of “brand strength index”.
I recently stayed at the beautiful Taj Hotel in New Delhi, and it was genuinely one of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed – great customer service, beautiful furnishings, great location.
But one thing left a slightly sour taste in the mouth – an abundance of signs and posters around the hotel, all saying the same, strange thing:
“Taj Hotels is recognized as the world’s strongest hotel brand in 2025, with an AAA+ rating and a brand strength index of 92.2”.
What?!
Of all the things to stick on a sign, they chose something that has absolutely nothing to do with the experience of staying at the hotel, their service or their facilities.
And rather than elevate the brand in my mind, it did rather the opposite, leaving a feeling of grubby commercialism in its wake.
Yes, it might be great for the Taj that its brand is strong, but why is it?
The product, and the way customers feel about it. So promote that!
If you’re crafting marketing collateral and wondering what you should be saying to your customers and prospects, it’s worth a reminder of WIIFM – ‘What’s in it for me?’
Marketing that focuses on how your customer benefits? Great.
Marketing that waffles on about stuff that only you care about? Not so great.
When I go to India again, and I will as I loved the country, I will be investigating other brands exactly because of those signs, which was not what their marketing department intended, I am sure!
