When it comes to the evolution of Element Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide’s “eco-wise” extended stay brand that debuted in 2008, Brian McGuinness says the more things change, the more they stay the same.

　　When it comes to the evolution of Element Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide’s "eco-wise” extended stay brand that debuted in 2008, Brian McGuinness says the more things change, the more they stay the same. McGuinness, Starwood’s senior vice president, specialty select brands, notes that even though the growing brand — which currently boasts a portfolio of 11 hotels in the United States and Canada and an announced pipeline of eight properties — is planning expansion in hot new markets such as China, its central mission is still to remain on the forefront of eco-hospitality.

　　HOTELS: How has Element evolved since the brand's debut in 2008?

　　Brian McGuinness: Relative to the brand itself, it really hasn’t changed. It continues to be Starwood’s incubation lab for all things green and ecofriendly, whether it’s kinetic energy where we’re testing bicycles in the fitness center that will charge your smartphone while you’re biking by using your own energy or the fact that each hotel saves about a million gallons of potable water each year because of the fixtures we use. Those are still the tenets of the brand, and we continue to push forward with those. Last year we installed electric vehicle charging stations in all our hotels. So it’s sort of bringing it to the next level and being on that forefront of what it means to be in eco-hospitality.

　　As I think back, we were very strategic and thoughtful about where we wanted these hotels to go. It had to be the right location, the right partner, the right owner and someone who shared our passion around being ecofriendly. The biggest change in the past year is our desire to go outside the United States. We kind of kept [the brand] close to home; it was the right thing to do for the first four years as we were really looking at not greenwashing this brand and being completely authentic to the green space, if you will. We were excited to move into Canada with Element Vaughn. I was just in China, in Shanghai and Suzhou, which is a great eco-city, to announce our first Element Hotel in China. Then next year we open Frankfurt in Germany.

　　HOTELS: It sounds like the main tenets of the brand haven’t changed, but what about the target guest?

　　McGuinness: As I think when we were brainstorming in 2008, [the target guest] was probably the person who drives the Volvo, makes US$150,000 a year, two-plus kids, kind of a white-picket-fence life. What we’re learning is, demographics aside, the psychographic is that person who wants to stay healthy while on the road; we call them “healthy actives.” It’s not just relative to the car they drive, but it’s the fact they read Architectural Digest. They prefer wine over beer. They prefer to read versus watch TV. That is who we’re attracting. I always think of Four Points as a cold beer, Aloft as a martini and Element as a glass of wine.

　　HOTELS: How do you emphasize what Element is all about in an increasingly crowded marketplace?

　　McGuinness: In our advertising and our marketing, you might find somebody on a bicycle or somebody on a hiking trail or someone reading in one of our lobbies with a glass of wine — the idea is to be evocative of what the experience is at the hotel through stylized marketing, which I think is very different both in the select-service category as well as extended stay.

　　We do position ourselves around filtered water, dispensers to save plastics in the bathroom, Energy Star appliances, recycle bins — we do reach out to our target customer that way as well.

　　It really is a little bit about the re-imagination of the lobby space too. “Bar is back” is what we say in some of the other brands, really creating that lobby space with a dynamic bar. We went another direction with Element with a café culture. You’re not going to hear wild music, it’s going to be cool music, you’re going to have a good glass of wine, you’re going to read the New York Times and relax. Bringing that café culture to the lobby is certainly a different direction.