Cloud.7 is a destination for young, spontaneous travellers. Creating an environment to connect with like-minded people and the local community is at the forefront of the concept. Cloud.7 Ataköy Marina Istanbul was the first hotel to market in February 2016, followed soon by more locations around the world. Hotelier Express caught up with Cloud.7 Hotels CEO Marloes Knippenberg and brand director Antony Doucet to discuss the inspiration behind their concept.
What fuelled your decision to compete in the Middle East on concept rather than price?
Marloes Knippenberg: We believe that being in the mid-market doesn’t mean you have to create a box-like room with no life, no soul and no connection. The one thing that we said from the beginning was that our concept is like a box of Lego – when you have a Lego, you can build whatever you want to build – you just use your blocks and every day you build something new, and that is what we’re doing. At Cloud.7 it’s not only about price, in fact it’s not only about design either; it’s how to make the most profitable model that speaks the loudest to the guests of that specific location. We found a potential problem with other hotel concepts in their regimented approach – meaning that in every location they are essentially the same. Cloud.7 is different, every location offers something unique, and so we build our concept according to the customs, traditions and offerings of the local community.
Antony Doucet: Everyone is already competing on price in the mid-sector, it is a market that is upside down. Most of the other traditional hotel brands in the mid-sector focus on price because people traditionally have booked based on price, not experience. If you can provide your guests with a local experience they become loyal, and whenever the city if full and the rates are higher – guests will still choose you. Traditional mid-sector brands are stuck on the price model because previously people chose their hotel brands purely on price.
Who is Cloud.7 targeting with this concept?
Marloes: We have focussed our brand on millennials, however we have re-named this market ‘the new traveller’. Millennials are no longer defined by an age group – it’s a state-of-mind. When you realise that, you see this type of travel is characterised by the location, not necessarily the type of hotel, and this is what we’re leveraging on. For example, when you come to Dubai you will most likely visit all the major tourist attractions, but Dubai also has a different face, a vastly diverse and cultural face. What we’re trying to do at Cloud.7 is bring ‘real Dubai’ directly into guests’ experience though our hotel concept.
Antony: Importantly, we also include the business traveller with this new concept. The mid-sector in Dubai is already heavily targeting business travellers – but even business people can visit the city, meet new people and see the culture of the location. I am convinced that you will see a trend with these travellers combining business and leisure, especially in a location like Dubai. We’re not searching for extremes at Cloud.7 – some people are, and that’s great – but it’s all about how you fit in. With us, were not trying to change the world; we are facilitating the change that is already underway.
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Do you have a social and digital strategy you’re launching to attract guests?
Marloes: Our strategy will target key social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat – because they’re the platforms where our market is. One of the elements that will bring Cloud.7 to life is the collaborative nature in all we do. In every location we are present, the brand will look different; for this reason it is important to have genuine ambassadors on the ground, speaking many languages, talking about what we do. For example, we have a blogs, written by people in each individual community, and we post two or three times per week. This is content written by people in the city, and in different languages too, not just using a translator, but individuals speaking each language where we operate. We’re actively generating and providing the most authentic content possible to enhance our guests experience with Cloud.7 and the destintations they visit.
Antony: We are focussing on creating rich content, but our content must be organic. For example we are creating monthly short videos, all about our concept of spontaneous living. When we talked to our videographer about this, he instantly understood our idea. We will never produce a video about one of our hotels – it’s all about the location. They will all be connected too, month after month; there will be narratives and themes, but they won’t look like traditional promotional videos. We are connecting with locality and the authenticity of the neighbourhood, and bringing it to the guests. This is a video series – they’re not conventional commercial adverts. The idea is to capture the spontaneous living in each location – to give people a different vision of life – so where ever you go there will be a tailor-made video related to that area.
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