Comprehensively set up as an hotel the service doesn’t just stop there as there is also a small food store available serviced from the reception desk. Here there is a selection of products ranging from the obvious bags of chips (crisps on the European side of the Atlantic) to ready meals, candy bars and various drinks. With a kitchen only run at breakfast and optimised for it, no other food operation or bar, staffing is light in these units and success is much more dependant on the calibre of the management as well as the level of design and equipment.

There may only be three schemes covering the studio, one and two bedroom apartments, and they are obviously selected to be inoffensive (although to European eyes many US interiors appear bland) but the hotel is comfortable and comprehensively thought through. With free internet access throughout and good management (and that at Chantilly was truly warm and welcoming, and obviously on good first name terms with many guests) the attractions of a suites hotel are compelling.

If the interiors shown on the prototype are matched in reality and the management schemes are implemented with a smile. I think that the only question for Intercontinental is how quickly they can roll out Staybridge Suites throughout Europe, because it seems to me this is a winning formula. For the franchise operation that Intercontinental has become the only compelling question is can they arrive at a sophisticated management model that allows the creative freedom to hotel designers whilst ensuring brand standards are met, or must they go down the prescriptive US route of only three schemes throughout the brand? The issues are management vs. control, prescription versus constant innovation, quality standards versus stereotyping. This story will, I suspect, run and run.

2008 Update: The first UK Staybridge has just opened. It appears that standards adopted for Europe were somewhat higher than the US and led to a brand reappraisal that delayed UK rollout. The first, in Liverpool, opened at the end of 2007