This was published 7 years ago
Donald Trump's brand: Would anyone stay in a Trump hotel now?
By Lee Tulloch
I've come perilously close to being Trumped a few times in my life.
I've been in a room with Donald Trump, but there were perhaps 300 people between us.
Then there was the time Melania, engaged to Donald, visited our Tribeca loft for a photo shoot – but I wasn't at home.
Trump Tower in New York is one of many buildings adorned with the businessman's name. Credit: iStock
And I've never stayed at a Trump hotel, although I've been invited.
Phew.
Ever since Donald Trump began his incendiary run for the US presidency, the Trump brand, glossy and gold and superior to anything else, as he would have it, has become tarnished, perhaps irrevocably. Trump is a believer in "there's no such thing as bad publicity" and has used his presidential campaign as one big marketing opportunity for his brand.
But has he trashed it?
Trump has built his brand on being a successful businessman and television identity. But the election campaign has put that business model under intense scrutiny. His refusal to release his tax returns and his admission of tax dodging has hurt him.
His "beautiful" buildings are under scrutiny, too. Recently, Nell Scovell, a reporter for Elle Decor, ran around Trump Tower with a camera and found broken escalators and shoddy construction that doesn't bode well for the Mexican wall. She called it "a flashy outward image barely concealing a rotting garbage-filled core".
Trump's tawdry sideshow and attention-grabbing antics during the run-up to the election had its tipping point with the Billy Bush Access Hollywood hot mic moment, prior to the second debate. Since then, anything with "Trump" on it has experienced a backlash. And Trump likes putting his name on a lot of big, shiny things.
You can't visit New York without coming face to face with the Trump brand somewhere. There's Trump Tower, a monolithic, ghastly shopping mall, office, residential and hotel complex on Fifth Avenue, Trump International Hotel at Columbus Circle, Trump Soho Hotel, Trump World Tower, Trump Parc, Trump Plaza, Trump Wollman Rink in Central Park and Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in the Bronx.
There is also a city of high-rise condominiums along the Upper West Side called Trump Place. If you've ever taken the excellent Circle Line cruise around Manhattan, you'll know it. Many of the tenants in the building are so embarrassed by the T-R-U-M-P emblazoned across the three buildings that a few hundred of them have signed a petition to rid the condos of the Trump name.
The mayor of Vancouver has asked the developer of the Trump International Hotel to change the hotel's name. Even Trump himself is shedding those pesky five letters with his newest hotel project, called Scion. The "Trump" is nowhere in sight, even though three of his children are on the executive team.
Scion, which has nine hotels in the pipeline, is a lifestyle hotel brand, targeting a younger market than the Trump hotels, so it is reasonable that it has its own brand name and image. Still, it doesn't look good right now that a subsidiary has Dumped the Trump.
Perhaps it is his constant, outrageous sexist comments that have affected his hotel business the most. Travel Weekly, a trade publication, reports there has been a 61 per cent slump in travel agents recommending Trump hotel properties to their clients since the offensive "Grab them by the pussy" tape was leaked.
In a nicely ironic twist, a majority of US travel agents are women. Women make the majority of leisure travel decisions. So, in a business sense, Trump was perhaps not wise to alienate such a huge swathe of his market, which also happens to make up a majority of the voting population.
Ivanka Trump's clothing line is also suffering collateral damage. While Trump's eldest daughter is generally respected, she has been a surrogate for her father in the campaign. She wore one of her own dresses to the Republican convention (the one famously made in China) and then pushed its sale online the next day. #GrabYourWallet is a Twitter movement that targets stores, such as Macy's and Bloomingdales, which stock Ivanka's lifestyle products.
Paris Hilton's hard partying antics didn't really hurt the Hilton hotel brand, as the brand was ultimately bigger and more conservative than its socialite jailbird namesake. And Hilton rehabilitated herself.
But Trump is shameless and there's not much hope of rehabilitation.
A lot of people, disgusted with Trump's overt sexism and racism, are asking themselves, would I stay in a Trump hotel?
Would you?
See also: Traveller's review - Trump's Chicago hotel
See also: Why America's Trump-loving states are not what you'd expect
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