Yeoh Siew Hoon can't wait to slip into her Sheraton Secrets underwear - pour herself a Marriott martini and call home service for a Shangri-La supper.

In the future, we will live in a home that's like a hotel, we will stay in hotels that will feel like home and sleep in Sheraton Secrets underwear.

Consider this. Hotel brands are now lending their name to real estate. St Regis Residences launched in Singapore last month and set a new record for property prices in the city.

One buyer reportedly paid more than S$3,000 per square foot. The previous record was 11 years ago when someone paid $2,882 per square foot for an apartment in Orchard Road.

At conferences, we are told that branded real estate typically fetches 30% more return than non-branded real estate. With such hype, we can expect more hotel brands to go the residential route which means that in the future, we could all be living in homes run by hotel groups.

Then, when we stay at their hotels while we are on the road, they want us to feel at home. Sheraton wants you to do more than that, it wants you to "belong". Its new brand promise is "At Sheraton, you just don't stay here, you belong".

Home or hotel? Can you tell the difference?

I remember saying at a conference a couple of years ago that hotels must give their customers a sense of belonging and some eyebrows were twitching because they thought I was being too feminine fuzzy.

Well, Sheraton's new brand personality is summed up in three key words – warm, comforting, connections. Can you get any more fuzzy than that?

Starwood's new brand strategy, rolled out just this month to differentiate its various brands, is just one example of a hotel company that's cranking up the branding game.

What Starwood is doing is building brand personality into each of its brands so that when it lends its name to other products such as underwear, the same halo effect will resonate. "With Sheraton's Secrets, you don't just wear it, you belong" could work just as well.

Which, when you think about it, is a scary proposition. It means we could be hotel customers from cradle to grave, and every stage in between.

I have met some hoteliers of this generation who were born in hotel rooms and grew up to become general managers like their fathers before them.

"What was the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes?" I asked a general manager once.

"A hotel chandelier," he said.

Looks like things could come full circle again.

So can Shangri-La buy my condominium unit and rebrand it Shangri-La's Tanjong Ria so that I can sell it at a premium and retire to – oh no, there's no escaping it – an Alila Villa in Bali?


The SHY Report
A regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry by one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, Yeoh Siew Hoon.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her company's mission is "Content, Communication, Connection".

She is a writer, speaker, facilitator, trainer and events producer. She is also an author, having published "Around Asia In 1 Hr: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries". Her motto is ‘free to do, and be'.

Contacts: Tel: 65-63424934, Mobile: 65-96801460

Yeoh Siew Hoon's other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com. Get your weekly cuppa of news, gossip, humour and opinion at Travel's Busiest Junction.