The Hotel Industry is the reddest ocean of all. It’s redder than red.
These words were pronounced by Michael Levie, Co-Founder of CitizenM Hotels, one of the extremely rare examples of Blue Ocean Strategy applied to hotels.
Blue Ocean Strategy is a business framework that helps businesses of any shape and form identify their path to uniqueness (blue ocean), as opposed to competing with a whole bunch of undifferentiated players (red ocean).
A concept I fell so much in love with, that not only did I use (and keep using) in my own business, but it’s a topic I wrote one of my first articles about, more than 2 years ago, showcasing what to me represents the most beautiful example of Blue Ocean Strategy for hotels.
Since then I found few other examples of independent hotels or groups of hotels that adopted this framework too.
Of which, one is indeed CitizenM Hotels.
Nothing that I can add to what Levie already says in this video. And please, do yourself a huge favour: if you haven’t watched it already, do it now, believe me it’s worth every single seconds of your time.
The Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create grid is probably the most important framework in the context of a Blue Ocean Strategy.
And if you really want to differentiate from the competition, you MUST go through these 4 steps, the same steps these successful Hotels adopted and implemented.
I’ve created a template of this 4-block grid for you that not only allows you to enter the competing factors and their values, but it will also visually show you how differently you are about to position your hotel against your competitors.
The ultimate results, should look like this:
Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas
And in the video on top I’m going to show you how you can use the Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create framework to create your unique Blue Ocean Strategy.
Enjoy.
