Classics Need No Replacement: A New Classic Narrative for Mid-to-High-End Hotels
In recent years, the mid-to-high-end hotel market has developed rapidly, and the competition between new and established brands has intensified. New brands labeled as avant-garde or niche often gain popularity for their distinctive positioning and products. However, as the industry moves from noise back to rationality, people find that classic brands still maintain steady growth and a unique standing. In the mid-to-high-end hotel track, the Vienna International Hotel brand is a classic leader. Since last year, it unveiled a new brand image and quality internationalization strategy, along with the Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition product. Vienna International continues to deepen its product positioning of "recreating the taste of European classical living," and standard stores have opened. Behind this strategic deployment from planning to project implementation is Vienna International's new definition of "classic."
▲Caption: The first store of Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition in Fengcheng Circular Economy Park Huijin International City
Thanks to the improvement of the national economy and general growth in per capita consumption, the mid-to-high-end hotel market has entered a new cycle of high-quality development. In this process, many classic brands have emerged to lead industrial development, relying on high-quality products and years of operational experience to win a large following. But now, the advantages of these brands are no longer obvious. Industry insiders told Meadin that due to their long history, many mid-to-high-end hotel brands inevitably fall into puzzles like aesthetic disconnection, outdated products, and service misalignment, and their commercial value is shrinking. Meadin noted that the era classic brands face has indeed changed:
Change 1: International vision and experience upgrade coexist, and the complexity of consumer demands is prominent. The new generation of consumers grew up during an economic boom, possessing a broad international perspective and strong cultural confidence that gives them the inclusiveness to accept both Chinese and foreign traditional cultures. At the same time, they identify with the concept of "value for money" and hope to experience higher-quality accommodation products that reflect their lifestyle and status.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
Change 2: Amid market fluctuations, industrial structure adjustment, and investment demand becoming more rational. Against the backdrop of global macroeconomic volatility, investors in the industry have purer requirements for hotel business: better return on investment, shorter payback period, and longer value chain have become the core criteria for evaluating mid-to-high-end hotel brands. Change 3: New brands emerge endlessly, and industry competition is white-hot. Mid-to-high-end hotels have become a hot investment track in recent years. Leading hotel groups and regional hotel groups are accelerating their layout in this segment, with numerous new brands and old brands upgrading. Product and service innovations are increasingly diverse.
High quality is the fundamental principle of era development, and developing new quality productivity is the new theoretical guidance for the high-quality development era. Under the growth logic of classic brands, this theory is concretized as profound insight into industry changes, helping the industry enter an advanced productivity state that aligns with the new development concept. In other words, if change is a challenge that classic mid-to-high-end hotel brands must face, then under the guidance of new theories, how to reshape classics in a changing era is the key that classic brands need to ponder.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
The reason classics become classics is that they are the result of time-tempering and enduring precipitation. The process of becoming a classic brand is also a process of facing challenges and constantly surpassing oneself. In the mid-to-high-end hotel track, the Vienna International Hotel brand is one of the concrete manifestations of a classic brand. On one hand, as a leader in mid-to-high-end hotel scale, Vienna International has long become a top-tier brand with its unique product form and brand recognition accumulated through years of deep cultivation in the industry. On the other hand, in the new market environment, Vienna International constantly seeks change and innovation, redefining the connotation of a classic brand. Around the product positioning of "recreating European classical taste of living," it is telling a new classic story:
First, a contemporary narrative of classical aesthetics.
Classicism is a historical complex buried in the human spiritual world and a model of culture and art. Vienna International Classic Edition extracts exquisite gilded carved decorations from the doorframes of European royal courts, refines Rococo-style plant tracery art from the classical mansions of European nobility, and distills classic arch and other elegant elements from European church architectural design. These are applied to hotel hardware and software design, such as exclusive patterns printed on envelopes, decorative borders on guest welcome cards and room keys, and various hotel signage. A product aesthetic blending classical art and modern design is formed across all visible details.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
Meadin noted that the creation of this aesthetic is not a floating concept but a concrete expression that lands in scenes. It involves multiple scenes such as gatehouse design, lobby front desk, lobby atrium, lobby restrooms, glass tracery, elevator lobbies, elevator cars, guest room floor corridors, guest rooms, and guest room bathrooms. These scenes combine to build an atmospheric classical hall full of artistic flavor, recreating the elegance and romantic sentiment of classical architecture, truly enabling consumers to "sleep in the glory of classical art" and providing an unforgettable European classical living travel experience.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
Second, elegant innovation of new quality products.
In the product framework of the Vienna International Hotel brand Classic Edition, the core of developing new quality productivity lies in product innovation and service upgrade. It not only captures the personalized and experiential consumption demands of current consumers but also responds elegantly through refined product upgrades, constructing detailed and meticulous services for consumers. Meadin noticed that besides the visual aesthetic upgrade mentioned above, Vienna International Classic Edition is committed to more innovations in the "five senses." In terms of hearing, Vienna International Hotel implements customized full-day music design divided into six time periods to meet the auditory experience needed for users' emotional states. In terms of smell, Vienna International Classic Edition uses an exclusive custom fragrance to create a European royal palace atmosphere, leaving a unique memory point and special olfactory experience.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
In terms of taste, Vienna International has also comprehensively upgraded breakfast, highlighting an international label that balances Chinese and Western while ensuring quality. It will introduce special dishes across different categories, among which Chinese breakfast will implement "one city, one flavor, inheriting classics" based on the store's city, while Western breakfast selects the representative Austrian dish Vienna sausage from the brand's inspiration source.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
Third, super value addition of the business model.
While pursuing high quality, Vienna International Hotel brand Classic Edition is further exploring possibilities for low cost, high efficiency, and strong returns. On one hand, the Classic Edition applies new material solutions, simplified shapes, and craftsmanship to further reduce hotel construction costs. According to estimated data, the per-room construction cost for the guest room interior of Vienna International Classic Edition is only 74,000 yuan per room, and the comprehensive per-room construction cost is 125,000 yuan. The key to achieving both high quality and low cost lies in Vienna International's decomposition of hotel products and services, reallocating input costs across different scenes. For example, the elevator lobby on the guest room floor of the Classic Edition uses wall fabric with wood lines to replace the previous 5.0 version's shadow wood veneer, greatly reducing construction costs. The gatehouse building facade uses real stone paint instead of stone material, reducing material costs by 90%.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
On the other hand, Vienna International applies a customization + assembly decoration easy production model, combined with factory modular customization and on-site assembly decoration, which not only optimizes the SOP for construction but also further improves construction efficiency. It is understood that Vienna International Classic Edition has a shorter construction period and longer usage cycle. In guest room decoration, apart from wooden lines on doors, wardrobes, etc., the Classic Edition guest rooms use fully modular movable furniture throughout, eliminating the need to wait for fixed furniture installation to finish before entering the site, shortening the installation period by 7-10 days. Moreover, the high-quality new materials used are not only fireproof and moisture-proof but also long-lasting without fading or discoloration and are easy to clean.
No matter how the interpretation and meaning of classics change, the essence of value remains unchanged. After all, a long historical cycle, aesthetics that transcend eras, and years of market testing are the indelible standards for testing classics. However, from a macro industrial perspective, although becoming a classic is the ultimate goal of all brands, it is always challenging to become a classic at any time. Only by constantly challenging oneself and breaking through innovation can one reshape classics and achieve the brand's long-term value. Meadin noted that as a classic brand leading the mid-to-high-end hotel market to this day, the Vienna International Hotel brand has a unique brand philosophy that allows it to traverse cycles.
First, resonance between culture and product.
Since its inception, the Vienna International Hotel brand has been inseparably integrated with European classical culture, and Western classical art aesthetics have become the bloodline of its product creation. In this process, Vienna International has also found a presentation form of resonance between culture and product: on one hand, continuous adjustment of visual products. As the so-called classics, they always look fresh; classical aesthetics and modern art can collide into infinite sparks, and it is within these sparks that Vienna International promotes continuous aesthetic upgrades.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
On the other hand, it manifests as a reconstruction of classical lifestyle. People's pursuit of classics is essentially a longing for an aristocratic lifestyle. Vienna International Hotel brand captures this core demand and integrates the cultivation, refinement, and excellent experience of classicism into the brand's product creation logic to meet the needs of mid-to-high-end mass business travelers for high-quality accommodation.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
Second, the integration of demand and innovation.
The core of developing new quality productivity is innovation. In the view of the Vienna International Hotel brand, innovation involves two steps: one is accurately capturing changes in consumer demand and investment demand, and the other is iterating products to elegantly respond as needed. This is particularly evident in Vienna International Classic Edition. To meet the changing needs of consumers, it integrates consumer experience demands into the innovation logic of products and services. Through scene composition, technology empowerment, and function superposition, it creates a classical art aesthetic space for consumers while also building an elegant urban living room.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
To address investors' return demands, Vienna International increases investment costs in material innovation, construction solution innovation, and operational innovation, continuing to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and increase revenue on the brand's original foundation. According to franchise investment calculations, taking a hotel in a new first-tier city as an example, a standard Vienna International Classic Edition achieves an average annual occupancy rate of 88%, a five-year average daily rate of 400 yuan, and an investment return period shortened to 3.49 years. Meadin noted that the investment return model constructed by Vienna International Classic Edition is precise data derived from extensive calculations, and the cost reduction and efficiency increase it brings to owners and investors are truly tangible business. It is understood that the construction cost data of the first store of Vienna International Classic Edition in Yichun Fengcheng is basically consistent with the projected business model, with the per-room interior construction cost (standard single room 28㎡) at only about 74,500 yuan.
Third, dual drive of operation and experience.
In addition to high-quality product supply, another key to the Vienna International Hotel brand's standing in the mid-to-high-end hotel track lies in its strong operational capability accumulated through years of market experience. As of March 2024, Vienna International has an overall scale of over 1,500 hotels, with over a thousand opened, covering more than 300 cities in China, ranking TOP3 in the mid-to-high-end hotel list, and possessing extremely strong operational capability. The sales iron army combat system established by Vienna International can link stores, regions, and brand headquarters for performance supervision and marketing support, assisting hotel marketing revenue. The "trinity" quality inspection system ensures the high-quality implementation of hotel products.
▲Caption: Vienna International Hotel Classic Edition
At the same time, benefiting from the powerful platform support of Jin Jiang Hotels (China Region), it not only has the endorsement of over 190 million C-end member traffic and over 200,000 corporate client traffic, but Jin Jiang Global Procurement Platform GPP also escorts Vienna International's high-quality and stable supply chain system. Relying on the professional talent pool built by headquarters, it brings high-quality talent replenishment to hotels, assisting the continuous leap in hotel operational capability. This advantage is also reflected in data: during the 2024 Spring Festival, Vienna International hotels increased OCC by 16% year-on-year, RevPAR increased by 66 yuan, 73 cities were fully booked in a single day, the highest single-day RevPAR reached 1,652 yuan, and stores in cities like Xiamen, Xishuangbanna, Sanya, Luoyang, Liangshan, and Xi'an saw daily RevPAR surpass 1,000 yuan.
In this era, perhaps with changes in the industrial environment and market mechanisms, more and more mid-to-high-end hotel brands have the opportunity to enter the fast lane, but there is absolutely no shortcut to development. For young brands, though opportunities exist, they require the tempering of time. For a classic brand like Vienna International Hotel, what is needed is to challenge itself in a market without rivals and reshape the classics. As the saying goes, a large ship turning its rudder will sail into wider waters and see better scenery.
