The Brown Hotels properties are all based on a dedication to service, design, innovation, style and authenticity to meet guests’ individual preferences whether they come for a holiday, a spa break or just a single night’s accommodation. “We don’t want to be traditional hotel owners,” says CEO and co-founder Leon Avigad. “We’re aiming to offer a relaxed, loose but still very professional service.”
Founded in 2005 by Leon Avigad and Nitzan Pas as a consulting company with a view to introducing a fresher, novel approach to the hospitality sector, the company soon expanded its focus. In 2010 its first property to operate under the Brown hotel brand was opened in Tel Aviv, setting the course for future business development.
As Avigad explains, the Brown brand was established with the desire to create dwellings that not only show tourists the real culture and creativity of a city’s population, but also to expand the nightlife and neighbourhood establishments for locals. As such, each Brown hotel is unique, independent and imbued with a true sense of place.
“The hospitality industry has changed over the past few decades, as guests’ preferences have become more individualised. As a result, the market is experiencing greater differentiation and boutique hotels are on the rise. Even big players such as Marriott, Intercontinental and Hilton are establishing sub-brands to accommodate this desire for difference.”
After the first boutique hotel in Tel Aviv, Brown opened the first boutique hotel in Jerusalem followed by Athens, the Greek islands, Croatia and others. “We wanted to infuse some content into the seaside and urban hotels, but also have a story to tell in resorts,” says Avigad. “Today Brown owns 28 hotels in southern Europe and operates another 12, in line with our desire to grow around the Mediterranean and highlight the individual characteristics of our hand-picked properties.”
Experiential offering
Speaking about the latest market developments, he reflects that the entire hospitality industry is moving towards greater professionalism. Hence single-owned hotels may find it increasingly difficult to compete with the complex commercial management techniques of the era of digitisation and may welcome Brown’s assistance and expertise.
“The hospitality industry requires modern approaches. This is what we offer. This is what we enjoy doing. More and more hotel owners understand that just redesigning their properties is not enough – everybody is expecting perfect design and beauty today; it has become a benchmark, a minimum criterion. To exceed this, to stand out, you need to offer something else. This is what Brown strives to achieve.”
This ‘something else’ is the utmost focus on the best of the basics – excellent bedding (the company does their own mattresses and linen), pleasant shower experience and outstanding breakfast based on fresh, local produce and modern menus. The company also pushes collaborations with local chefs, artists and musicians to build relationships and connect the hotels with their surroundings.
Avigad further points out that although Brown is the first adopter of each and every app, the company is trying to maintain the balance between high tech and travel tech, between robotics and a personal approach to its guests. “We can run a little gem hotel with 24 rooms, as well as a huge mammoth property with 300 rooms, and we are striving to make each guest feel appreciated, not just a quick check-in check-out number. We talk to our guests, we listen to them, we try to step in their shoes to understand how we can further improve.”
Proud achievements
This personalised approach is one of the factors that has pushed the company growth. Avigad points out that Brown’s ratio of direct revenue, i.e. number of guests booking directly, as opposed through wholesalers and commission-based sites, is 50%, which is unheard of in the sector. “A really strong experiential offer, and really good content is key,” he says.
Sticking to the company’s founding principles has clearly paid off. Just recently, Brown has further enhanced its position as a desired, reputable boutique hotel brand by signing franchise agreements with hospitality giant Hilton, which sees two of Brown’s hotels in Greece entering the “Curio Collection by Hilton” brand – a global portfolio of more than 145 individually unique, hand-picked hotels.
The two new Hilton-branded properties are the Isla Brown Chania Resort on Crete and the Isla Brown Corinthia Resort and Spa in Agioi Theodoroi, both expected to welcome guests in the 2024 summer season. “We are clearly proud of this recent achievement, something that we had been working on since November 2021,” says Avigad.
“The Curio Collection is a beautiful collection of independent hotels, full of life and full of character, and the partnership will not only boost our reputation but also help to strengthen Hilton’s presence in Greece, where the company didn’t have strong exposure before.”
Growing in motion
The Hilton agreement is not the only achievement the company is proud of. Avigad reveals that in collaboration with the BCA College in Greece, the company has recently opened its Brown Academy, offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees, with a view to promote a more experiential and modern approach to hospitality. “Greece is a tourism superpower with 36 million visitors a year and it would be a shame not to use the beautiful infrastructure that the country has,” he says.
Thinking about the future, he points out that despite global challenges affecting the hospitality sector, Brown keeps on growing, with seven more hotels added to its portfolio this year. “The biggest challenge for us is stagnation – we don’t want to stay the same, we don’t want to be just another hotel chain whose only purpose is the financial one – for us, the content and the community are extremely important as well. We are determined to reinvent ourselves, to stay cutting-edge.”
He acknowledges that in line with this approach, he expects the company to grow in two vectors – externally, adding more hotels to the Brown Hotels brand to reach a portfolio of 50+ hotels by 2025, offering almost 5000 hotel rooms. And internally – to improve its service and the guest satisfaction rate. In doing so, benefitting local communities and using local resources, be it food and drink suppliers or architects, will remain the modus operandi. This ‘soulful’ approach is set to carry Brown into the future.
