Dorchester Group Rebrands as Dorchester Collection

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. October 14, 2008

NOVEMBER 10, 2006. The Dorchester Group is being re-branded as the Dorchester Collection, the new name and image has been developed to support the group's growth plans and signals a change to the strategic goals of the company. The company's mission is to develop an impeccable collection of the world's finest hotels, traditional and contemporary, and always highly individual, in the USA, Europe and Asia, both through acquisition and third party management contracts.

By applying its unrivalled experience and capability in owning and operating some of the world's great individual hotels, the Dorchester Collection will be looking to acquire as well as manage further wholly-owned and part-owned hotels, and to enter into management contracts for luxury city and resort hotels.

Backing the strategy is a strong company branding that expresses the market's universally high regard for the current portfolio and the distinctive common values held by all Dorchester Collection hotels, as well as an unrivalled base of clients.

Individual Masterpieces

Dorchester Collection, an independent UK-registered company wholly owned by the Brunei Investment Agency, currently owns and manages five individual masterpieces, all hotels with world-wide reputations for prestige and comfort in well-known and desirable locations: The Dorchester in London, The Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, Le Meurice and the Hotel Plaza Ath'en'ee in Paris and the Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan.

The new branding, under the name Dorchester Collection, and encompassed in the phrase, 'The Style of Individuality', supports and cultivates the reputation and individual character of each hotel, preserving the highest possible standards of service and excellence.

The strength of the brand will lie in its subtlety. At all times, the heritage, soul and character of each property added to the portfolio will be respected while introducing the benefits of modern systems, practices and technology. The names of the hotels will not be changed. The brand will quietly enhance and champion the reputations of these well known icons. As the Dorchester Collection expresses what its hotels mean collectively, so it also supports what they mean individually, allowing each hotel to promote its own identity and to define its own operational standards.

Consistently exceptional experiences

The Dorchester Collection will ensure a consistently exceptional experience for guests, who always enjoy a sense of prestige while feeling completely at home whichever uniquely individual hotel they choose. Dorchester Collection guests will experience a genuine difference between DC hotels and those of the competitors.

The Dorchester Collection brand name will help guests to connect its hotels as an assured experience, so any guest staying at one will understand that all its famous properties are one family. At the heart of DC's approach is the desire to give all guests a common 'sense of prestige' while always 'feeling at home'.

Sense of prestige

Dorchester Collection hotels are characterised by their prime locations with distinguished city addresses. The experience of each hotel is a blend of traditional and modern. The buildings are unique and distinctive with impressive and sensitive interior designs. The hotels have famous suites, deluxe bathrooms, feature restaurants and bars and branded spas. They derive culture and colour from the city and country of their location.

Feeling at home

The hotels combine a sumptuous and lavish ambience with true taste of their place and culture. All management and staff are genuine people, and guests are looked after in an indulgent, passionate and efficient way. The hotels make guests feel welcome and comfortable, meeting every need personally.

Reputation and capability

As a foundation for its stated growth objectives, Dorchester Collection has been building its own global distribution network, with its own GDS code 'DC'; call centres based in Frankfurt, Miami and Singapore; websites; sales infrastructure with offices and representation in London, New York, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Moscow and Tokyo; and an international PR infrastructure. These assets allow effective regional and worldwide programmes to be integrated with the individual hotel activities. Additionally, the size of the Dorchester Collection allows it to be agile and responsive to the individual requirements of each hotel while commanding a large base of loyal guests.

Management and operations

Each hotel also benefits from the company's extensive experience and capability in revenue management, systems quality assurance programmes, systems installation and training, and the development of food and beverage partnerships as well as design, renovation and modernisation project management, administration and finance. Dorchester Collection has a reputation for investing in its assets and dramatically improving value, services and facilities.

The strategic aims of management are to develop the existing hotel brands, infrastructure and teams, while unlocking the potential for the Dorchester Collection to represent an enlarged portfolio of deluxe hotels. The philosophy is to ensure that each hotel has the best and most talented front-line team. These are led by the General Managers each of whom is among the small world elite of outstanding hoteliers. While the General Managers instil and support the individual character, appeal and services of their hotels, they are given the effective and wide ranging support of the central resources.

Ricci Obertelli, Global Development Director for the Dorchester Collection, states, 'We believe that the potential exists to create the finest collection of individual deluxe hotels in the world. No other small hotel group operating in the luxury sphere can rival the assets we currently own and manage extremely successfully, or our list of clients. We intend to leverage the reputations of these famous hotels and our knowledge and expertise in successfully managing these assets to build a robust basis for the brand and to generate significant benefits for our shareholders. For our future partners, we offer the opportunity to participate in the infrastructure we have created to support the management company, whilst assuring that we will passionately retain the individuality of their trophy assets.'