With Intercontinental starting work on creating a chain of Staybridge Suites in the UK as a precursor to ‘invading’ Europe, it seemed appropriate to look at a new Staybridge Suites in the USA. Chantilly is outside Washington in the Virginia countryside, with the added attraction to the writer of being only a few miles from the new Smithsonian National Air Museum at Dulles airport.

The Suite hotel concept is much stronger in the USA, where distances travelled are so much vaster than the UK, making a temporary relocation for business reasons more attractive. Obviously with increasing mobility throughout the EU, the company is anticipating that international boundaries will fall away within the European Community, allowing the kind of distances travelled in the US to be replicated by consultants and business men on this side of the Pond. Staybridge competes with a number of brands in jointly providing many thousands of apartment style hotels offering long stay rates, in this case with the motto for making Staybridge “your home away from home”.

Built on a business park along with a clutch of other hotels including other competing suites offerings, the Chantilly Staybridge Suites sits on a generous plot of land alongside a lake with a number of different restaurant operations an easy walk from the hotel (not that anyone walks here, as the depth of Canada Goose droppings on the footpaths around the lake bears testament).

Rollover to see the European prototype bed. Differences include use of (colour) (color), lighting, and pictures

Rollover to see European version. Differences include US washstand in wardrobe area (bathroom just showerbath and w.c.) toiletries, and more generous scale of vanity unit in the US, although the European prototype includes shelf space missing in US version.

The problem with recreating this kind of scale for the brand in the European context will come with the acquisition of land and the cost per square foot of developing and building, especially in the UK. The generosity of spaces within Chantilly is the first impression that strikes a UK visitor – not just the floor plan space but the height that is given to public areas, creating a feel of openness and spaciousness. The generosity of the spaces is matched by the warmth and generosity, the fabled ‘Southern hospitality’, of the welcome extended by the staff. To work as a home from home the atmosphere needs to be friendly and relaxing and that is certainly achieved here. Whether this informality of welcome can be reproduced in Europe will be interesting to see as the chain develops through its initially planned 22 hotels in the UK.

It is interesting to compare the prototype rooms built in the UK against their US counterparts. Design is strongly controlled through the group, almost so that (as was pointed out to me) there is no need for the use of interior designers. There are just three bedroom schemes to be implemented throughout the brand and very tight control is kept over brand standards, so that implementation is simple for franchisees. If the branding is to work globally then control of hotel standards needs to be carried through all markets. However variety, it is said, is the spice of life, and maybe standards should not be equated to schemes. Perhaps designers are fortunate that in Europe the chains only control around 20% of the available hotel beds, which of course also gives guests more choice compared to the domination of the big players in the US market where some 80% of beds are in chain hotels. There are issues in Europe with the star rating varying so much between countries even just within the EU, but there is much more variety and many more boutique hotels than in the US where a chain like Starwood can create a brand like the ‘W’ which are considered ‘boutique’.