Aloft Hotels

Aloft Hotels

Company type	Franchise
Industry	hospitality
Founded	2005
Founder	W Hotels
Number of locations	203 (September, 2020)
Area served	United States, Canada, Europe, Asia
Owner	Marriott International
Parent	Marriott International
Website	aloft-hotels.marriott.com

Aloft Hotels is a hotel chain based in North America, owned by Marriott International. The first hotel opened at the Trudeau International Airport in Montreal in 2008. Aloft Hotels have opened across North America and internationally eversince. Most Aloft hotels are located in city centers or in close proximity to airports. As of June 30, 2020, the chain had 183 hotels with 30,660 rooms.

The brand is most notable for its modern architecture design style. Another characteristic of Aloft hotels is the naming of basic hotel amenities. For example, in each hotel, the swimming pool is referred to as "splash".

History

Aloft Hotels was conceived in 2005 by Amal Abdullah. The hotel chain already had several brands, including Sheraton, Westin, and W Hotels, but was looking to expand into a market of more contemporary hotels. To reflect its relationship with Starwood Hotels, the Aloft brand was dubbed "A Vision of W Hotels". Starwood worked with the architectural company Rockwell Group and its founder David Rockwell to come up with the design.

To generate interest in the brand before its 2008 opening, Starwood launched a virtual tour of the hotels using Second Life, which enables visitors to move through a typical Aloft Hotel and explore its aspects in detail. Starwood monitored statistics from the site, gauged public reception based upon visitors' opinions, and incorporated this information into the design of future Aloft Hotels. Aloft became part of Marriott International in 2016 when Marriott acquired Starwood.

Accommodations

		North America	Europe	Middle E. & Africa	0Asia &0 Pacific	Caribbean Latin Am.		Total
2016	Properties	081	06	003	020	Template:Nb106		116
	Rooms	012,096	01,000	0956	004,629	1,034		019,715
2017	Properties	097	06	004	024	Template:Nb107		138
	Rooms	014,565	01,000	001,131	005,558	1,145		023,399
2018	Properties	108	07	008	027	Template:Nb109		159
	Rooms	016,296	01,310	002,012	006,240	1,494		027,352
2019	Properties	119	10	008	029	0010		176
	Rooms	017,647	01,801	002,012	006,598	1,644		029,702
2020	Properties	134	10	008	030	0010		192
	Rooms	019,619	01,614	002,006	006,732	1,679		031,650

Locations

Marriott Aloft, Liverpool

Since its first hotel opened in 2008, the Aloft brand has grown rapidly. The hotel originally started in North America and expanded to include international locations. According to the Aloft website, in the United States there are current locations in 27 states. There are also open locations in Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, England, Germany, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, and Nepal.

In 2011 and 2012, 20 proposed locations were to open, including in Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, and England, for a total of 66 Aloft locations. While positive for the hotel brand, this number was well short of an original anticipation to have 500 locations by 2012.

In early 2013, the brand opened a 482-room property in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, making it the largest Aloft hotel in the world. The hotel includes a ballroom that can accommodate up to 1,000 people in a theatre setting.

In 2013, the chain opened a new hotel at the Ernst & Young Tower in Cleveland, Ohio.

In September 2016, Aloft entered the Saudi Arabian market with a new hotel near the center of Riyadh.

In December 2016, Aloft Long Island City-Manhattan View opened.

In 2018, the new Mag Mile Hotel in Chicago, the largest with 435 rooms, updated the Aloft template, by integrating modern art, cutting-edge design, and floor-to-ceiling windows in the lobby.

Reception

Public reception of Aloft Hotels has been mixed. The majority of opinions revolve around the two main aspects of the hotel brand: room prices, and the contemporary style. Critics have decried that Aloft Hotels have too much of a "cookie cutter" feel and use colors, shapes, and lingo to an overwhelming degree.