Andrew Farrow, group director of marketing at UK hotel operator RBH Hospitality Management, explores why strategic positioning and branding are critical for independent hotels and how they can guide investment, culture and guest experience to drive performance for owners in today’s market.
Independent hotels are operating in increasingly complex trading environments. Costs remain high, demand patterns continue to shift, and guests are more discerning than ever about where and why they choose to spend their money. With sustainability rising in importance, technology rapidly evolving and guest expectations increasingly focused on experiences, a clear and well-defined strategic identity is essential for your hotel’s long-term success.
The independent hotel market is crowded with quality properties, making focused strategic positioning essential for standing out and attracting the right guests. Beautiful design and dedicated teams led by talented individuals are not enough to ensure success in today’s climate, which means a hotel cannot fully realise its commercial potential without a clear sense of its audience, its purpose and the story it wants to communicate.
Strategic positioning should guide every aspect of a hotel and should be used as a business-critical tool that shapes investment decisions, operational priorities, and ultimately, financial outcomes.
Is your current positioning still relevant?
One of the most important questions independent owners should be asking right now is whether their current hotel’s positioning genuinely reflects today’s market. Many hotel brands have evolved incrementally over time and could benefit from a reassessment of demand, competition, market opportunities and guest expectations.
A useful starting point is to examine who you think is booking the hotel versus who is actually booking. Are these audiences aligned, or is a new segment emerging as a key source of demand? A deep dive into booking data and guest insights – including reviews and feedback – can help ensure your hotel’s identity remains accurate and competitive.
Data is key here as it helps to steer decisions. Marketing, especially creative input, can become a very emotional and personal topic, especially when shaping an identity for a hotel. Using a clear structure and relevant data helps to guide the project rationally and help understand where real lasting change can be made.
From there, look at a thorough analysis of the destination, competitive set, guest demand and owner objectives. Without this foundation, even the most creative ideas struggle to deliver lasting commercial impact.
If change is needed, it’s important not to simply take an ‘everything to everyone’ approach. In a crowded marketplace, this approach rarely works. Clear positioning is about making informed choices and sometimes narrowing focus to build stronger relevance with the guests that matter most.
Other areas to consider include looking at your hotel’s storytelling. Does your hotel, both physically and online, showcase your hotel’s story quickly and succinctly? In a competitive market, it’s vital that you get across that all-important messaging in a way that grabs the guests’ attention but is also a realistic representation of your hotel.
Where investment should be prioritised
Strategic positioning and branding should be the guiding force behind investment decisions, determining where and how capital is deployed. If you are clear on who your hotel is for and how it should perform in its market, priorities become far easier to define. Whether digital or physical, every decision should reinforce the same clear proposition, as misalignment between the two can dilute impact and limit return.
Digital and physical touchpoints must therefore work together to tell a consistent story. For many independent hotels, the booking journey, imagery and messaging all form the first impression, shaping expectations before a guest arrives. However, these must be supported by an on-property experience that delivers on that promise. A beautifully designed website cannot compensate for spaces that feel disconnected from the brand, just as a strong physical product can be undermined by unclear or outdated digital messaging.
Every hotel requires a unique and bespoke strategy, whether a full rebrand is required or a repositioning to capture demand and unlock its full potential. Two of RBH’s most recent independent hotel projects differed in approach but shared a common thread of action built on insight, collaboration and commerciality.
At The Met Hotel Leeds, one of our recently relaunched Grade II listed properties, for example, investment was focused on reimagining the city’s landmark hotel for today’s modern traveller, whilst preserving the building’s historic features. The hotel owner’s deep understanding of the asset provided useful insight into the refurbishment across arrival sequences, public spaces and guest-facing technology alongside a full bedroom re-design, all guided by market insight, and a narrative rooted in the city’s industrial and creative heritage. The result is a cohesive experience where historic architecture and contemporary design work together to relaunch the hotel as a refined lifestyle destination.
At another of our hotels, The Milner York, a different approach was required, but the overall principle remained the same. While physical updates played a role, equal emphasis was placed on cultural and behavioural investment. Rebranded from its former identity (The Principal York), the hotel now draws deeply on the city’s railway heritage and local community narrative, ensuring its reputation as ‘the best loved hotel in York’ is lived as well as seen. Team training, leadership alignment and structured cultural change were also treated as essential components, ensuring the brand promise is consistently delivered through every guest interaction.
One year on, the impact of the rebrand at The Milner has been reflected in record revenues across bedrooms, food and beverage, events and leisure. This, accompanied by measurable improvements in guest satisfaction, service scores and team engagement, shows that when investment follows a clear strategy, owners can truly differentiate a hotel in its market by prioritising spend where it has the greatest impact.
For independent hotels navigating tight capital decisions, this clarity is what turns refurbishment from a cost into a catalyst for long-term performance.
Planning ahead
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, independent hotel owners should focus on the above, as well as these three key areas:
1. Understand your market. Before committing to a significant investment, reassess your hotel’s identity. Understand where your hotel sits in the market today and where it can win.
2. Internal alignment. A successful project is only as strong as the team behind it. Re-culturing the organisation and clearly communicating the ‘why’ behind the change are essential to bringing teams along the journey. This creates a sense of ownership and empowers team members to live the brand every day, which is an important driver of long-term success.
3. Rate resilience over volume. Chasing occupancy without a clear value proposition is a short-term fix. Hotels with strong positioning are better placed to protect rate, attract loyal guests and adapt as demand continues to evolve.
There is no one-size-fits-all blueprint. Each property presents a unique opportunity to create a bespoke solution, guided first by insight, then brought to life through creative and cultural execution. Data informs the strategy, culture sustains it, and ongoing collaboration ensures the outcomes deliver commercial value.
Ultimately, strategic positioning is about making informed, confident decisions that allow independent hotels to perform better commercially, culturally and competitively. In today’s market, that clarity can be the difference between standing still and moving ahead.
