When hotels are bought and sold, oftentimes the new owners of the hotel decide to do a hotel reflagging. This simply means that the hotel undergoes a name change. For example, the Gaylord hotel brand was recently purchased by Marriott. So, for example, the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center moved their web site URL to a new URL, which is now on Marriott.com. This is just one of the steps (updating the web site URL) that needs to be done when a hotel undergoes a reflag.
One of the interesting–yet challenging tasks that Standing Dog gets to work on is hotel reflagging. And I have to admit, although it is challenging, we do it very well. When a hotel is rebranded with a new name, hotel reflagging, done properly, is critical to the new hotel’s success. Although the hotel may have been physically located at the same location in the same building for many years, it’s critical that the new hotel reflagging be done properly.
When a hotel does hotel reflagging, there are obstacles. And when it comes to even the smaller details like the hotel’s web site, it’s a huge task, as well. The links from other web sites pointing to the former hotel’s web site need to be update. It’s sometimes a huge task to contact all the other web sites pointing to the old web site and get the links changed.
Rob Phillips from Standing Dog, has written a great blog post about hotel reflagging and everything that needs to be done. We all want to make sure a hotel’s reflag is done properly, and that it runs smoothly.