Southborough Hotel Gets Overhaul
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This image from Red Roof shows it's "NextGen" room design. The hotel chain is more than a year into a three-year renovation of its 350 hotels.
Red Roof Inn is in the midst of a $120-million, multiyear renovation at its 350 properties across 36 states.
And the economy hotel chain says the revamp of its Southborough location is nearly complete.
Aiming For Business Travel
Lindsey Norris, a spokeswoman for the Ohio-based hotel chain, said the hotel is hoping to distinguish itself from its competition with new wood floors, carpets, furniture, flat-screen TVs, new mattresses and more places to hook up electronic devices in rooms in an effort to cater to business travelers. Exterior upgrades, such as repaved and repainted parking lots, are also in the plan.
Norris said the company looked at research that showed business travel is on the uptick.
Demand Rising
The Global Business Travel Association predicts a 4.6-percent rise in business travel spending this year, or $266.7 billion. Specifically, hikes of more than 5 percent are expected in international outbound travel and group travel spending, according to the association's recent report.
Henderson, Tenn.-based Smith Travel Research echoes that trend, showing increases in three key hotel occupancy metrics for the week of Feb. 10 to Feb. 16 of this year, with a 1.8-percent uptick in occupancy, an average daily rate hike of 5.1 percent and revenue per available room up 7.1 percent.
This kind of data has helped drive Red Roof Inns' branding as lodging for business travelers, said Norris. The room renovations will further that message by replicating an office in a hotel room. "Now it's more like a home office, whether it's a place to plug in your laptop by the bed," or other amenities, she said.
Hotel Economics
Red Roof's president Andy Alexander told HotelNewsNow in Dec. 2011 that the upgrades, which the company is calling The New NextGen, would drive a minimum of a 10 percent premium to the chain's average daily room rate.
The mass renovation project varies by property, said Norris, and can include anything from new locks, exterior paint, windows, doors, carpets, furniture, bedding and vessel sinks. "Nicer rooms and enhanced technology" were main goals, she said.
"It's a learning curve like anything else," said Norris of the widespread renovations. "It's getting easier and quicker as we're nearing completion," she said.
The project began in late 2011, she said, and the Southborough hotel work is about halfway finished, with a completion time of mid-April.
Roughly half of the hotel's locations are owned by franchisees.
Hilary Easter, general manager of the Red Roof Inn in Southborough, said all they are waiting on now is Mother Nature.
"One building interior renovation is three-fourths done," she said in an email, with the other building work set to begin this week. Once those interiors are completed, attention turns to the outside, she said. "They have to wait until warmer weather to complete the exterior painting."
Renovations have been completed at Red Roof Inns at Logan Airport in Boston and in West Springfield, according to the company's website. There's a Red Roof in Framingham, but the town's permit database lists no renovation permits for the property.
Private Rooms, Public Reviews
Along with the revamped rooms, transparency's been another goal for the hotel chain, Norris said.
She pointed out that Trip Advisor reviews now appear right on Red Roof Inn websites as travelers go online to book a room. That gives people a chance to read how other guests have rated their stay on a one- to five-star system and to read their comments, without having to click around and research reviews from another site.
It also gives the hotel chain a chance to be more "brand accountable," Norris said.
The chain is also proactive about reviews. As of Wednesday, Easter had responded to nearly every review of her Southborough hotel on Trip Advisor dating back to Oct. 2011.
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