After Covid-19, we may never think of hotels the same way again

OPINION: In Australia, New Zealand and around the world, Covid-19 has turned luxury and semi-luxury hotels into quarantine facilities.

Among the four and five star hotels reported to have been used for temporary detention are the Intercontinental, Marriott, Hyatt Regency, Sheraton Grand, Sofitel Wentworth and Novotel Darling Harbor in Sydney; Auckland’s Rydges, Crowne Plaza, Grand Millennium, Four Points by Sheraton and Ramada; and Stamford Plaza, Mercure, Park Royal and Rydges in Melbourne’s Swanston.

Each has had a valuable mark.

Governments prefer four-star and five-star hotels to small ones because they are large (200 rooms or more) and easier to manage as quarantine facilities.

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It’s hard to blame the big international hotels for participating. With no international tourist income, they needed the money.

But by taking the money and being known as places where people are locked up, sometimes cross-infected and fed food ranging from “good” to “outrageous,” they risk destroying brands that took decades to build.

“Associative interference”

It would occur through a process known as associative interference, where it becomes difficult to focus on old and relevant information about something because new and less relevant information gets attached and gets in the way.

A recent memory of something much less glamorous can contaminate a lifetime of memories that associate a brand or experience with luxury.

This can happen both on a general level (hotels are no longer a place that I really want to spend time in, even the five-star ones) and on a specific level (this particular brand that I always associated with the quality that now I associate with something less tasty).

In New Zealand, the names of hotels designated as Covid-19 facilities are announced at press conferences, posted on an official website, and reported in the media.

In Australia, it is more unpredictable. Word spreads about the hotels being used, especially when things are going badly, although some seem reluctant to confirm their status.

How harmful could it be?

Brands like Intercontinental, Sheraton, Hyatt, Rydges and Ramada may be tempted to console themselves with the expertise of Corona, the beer brand.

It ended the year with its sales intact, despite initial concerns. But his only association with the coronavirus was a name.

Hotels have been linked to Covid and detention in real life.

Some have been likened to prisons.

One way for Covid hotels to reduce Covid pollution would be to flood people’s memories with something else: their original positioning as luxury venues.

A massive public relations and advertising campaign reinforcing previous themes of affluence and quality could, over time, overwhelm the quarantine association and restore the image that brands once had.

If all else fails, change the name

If the new stain still persists, there is an alternative. It is abandoning the name.

It is a maneuver with an impressive history.

After years of trying to overcome Britain’s worst nuclear disaster, the Windscale power plant and reprocessing facility changed its name to Sellafield in 1981.

Tobacco giant Philip Morris became Altria Group in 2003, and this year Adani Mining became Bravus Mining in something of a win for opponents at its Queensland coal mine. Australia’s much-criticized Newstart unemployment benefit became JobSeeker.

A new name without lineage might be better than a familiar one that evokes memories of 2020.

Daniel Laufer is Associate Professor at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.