BERLIN — CitizenM has its expansion strategy down to a science, literally.
To determine where it will plant its flag next, the tech-focused brand identifies 75 cities in America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Then the team gathers data for 40 variables in five categories, ranks the cities on those elements, then selects the first 25 cities that rank the highest.
"It's not really subjective; it's quite scientific," explained MariaPia Intini, development and investment director for Europe at CitizenM Hotels, in a video interview with Hotel News Now at the International Hospitality Investment Forum in Berlin.
It's how the company landed on its forthcoming openings in Italy — the first CitizenM in that country will open in Rome as a conversion from an office building along the Tiber River — then its first opening in Dublin, and an additional hotel in London, the fourth in the city.
Efficiency is the name of the game in many ways for this "affordable luxury lifestyle" brand, as CitizenM bills itself. The brand has 32 hotels open in 11 countries and launched in 2008 as a tech-forward company designed for savvy travelers who wanted boutique-style city-center hotels at affordable prices.
The company enters new cities with scale in mind. Some cities may only support one hotel, but in most cases, CitizenM will go to a place such as Paris or London knowing that the goal is to create capabilities around development, operations and commercial strategies to support multiple hotels around the city.
Conversions from office buildings or hotels, maintaining historic facades and ground-up development are all strategies the company will consider, Intini said.
That efficiency extends to hotel operations, too.
Inside the hotels, Intini said it's anything but cookie-cutter. It's more about having "the customer's digital and physical experience at the center of what we do. All we care about is eliminating the frictions the customer might have during the travel journey."
Guests use the CitizenM app to check in, open doors, order food, schedule housekeeping and get around the city.
But Intini said the "human touch" is a cornerstone of the brand's operations. Employees, or ambassadors, are on property to interact with customers as their main priority, enabled by the technology back end that centralizes administrative duties and technology operations.
For more from Intini on CitizenM's expansion strategies, ESG efforts and operations, watch the video above.