Therefore, according to this more precise calculation, the brand coverage ratio has remained virtually stable worldwide over the last two decades. By this measure, the hotel industry does not have an excess of brands.

On this point I think Dev misses the point. The problem is not that there are too many branded hotel rooms, but the number of different brands (the "coverage ratio" would be the same whether all rooms were 300 brands or 30) and in particular the number of different brands in each chain. No one can keep track of the number of brands that are part of Hilton versus Marriott, not even the executives of those chains.

It is commonly thought that a brand needs to invest in marketing in order for customers to understand its identity and build trust in the brand. But Sorensen argued that brands don't even need separate identities. And they had no plans to increase brand-specific marketing.

Instead, they had a loyalty programme. Their members would log on to Marriott.com, see what options were presented to them and choose among them. Marriott bought Starwood to leverage themselves so that their counterparties and customers would have no choice but to deal with them. And the more brands they offer, the more price and performance options. Customers may not understand them all, but there is a niche for everyone.

However, Marriott's technology has not always matched the number of options it offers in a given market. Some hotels seem to have lost prominence because there are simply too many options. Poorly trained telephone agents do not even always find the hotels that are being asked about.

Brands need clear definition and understanding to be valuable.

To earn additional revenue, customers need to understand what a brand stands for. They need to proactively want to book a hotel brand over the competition.

At a minimum, customers need to understand that a brand is part of a particular chain in order for them to choose it for the loyalty programme. In fact, it is a very small subset of members that could identify each brand as part of the programme.

However, more brands means being able to have more hotels in the same market. That increases revenues (e.g. management fees). More brands means more hotels and rooms, more rooms means more members, more members support the marketing of more rooms, and more customers for co-branded credit cards.

And the removal of brands would necessarily mean the removal of some hotels, either because some properties do not meet a brand's standards or because some owners would be unhappy with the change.

In 2020 I predicted that we would see elite promotions (to drive business), that full breakfast would be slow to return (cost resistance) and so would housekeeping (cost resistance), while services such as swimming pools and gyms would largely return (because the cost of building them had already been incurred). This has largely been the case and, indeed, cost reduction in breakfast has been a key issue.

The modern hotel chain seeks to maximise revenue from hotel owners, and hotel owners seek to benefit from the chain brand to attract customers while spending as little as possible on them. When they lease the brand, they want the benefit without having to make the investment. The "asset-light model" creates a conflict of incentives between brands and owners.

Historically, chains demanded investment and policed it. But in recent times the vigilance has diminished and chains have allowed hotels to skimp, either out of sympathy for the plight of owners, or for fear that owners would leave and find it harder to attract new ones. This maximises short-term revenue, but degrades brand value, which is, in fact, the chain's only long-term value.