Hotel group nestles down with softer Vibrandt look

Vibrandt has refreshed Travel Inn’s identity, as the hotel group seeks to put daylight between itself and rival chains in the increasingly cut-throat budget hotel sector.

The group is also redesigning reception signage and marketing materials, while Jermyn Street Design has been drafted in to create more contemporary uniforms for the chain.

Building on Travel Inn’s 1999 redesign, the new logo aims to be ‘softer and friendlier’, dispensing with the old marque’s hard edges, but retaining the moon image.

The name Travel Inn has also been split on to two separate lines and the word ‘Inn’ emphasised to distinguish the group from rival budget hotel chain Travelodge.

‘It’s a competitive market out there,’ says Travel Inn’s marketing controller Jim Procter-Blaine. ‘We may be the biggest hotel chain in the country, but we can’t afford to relax and this is all about continuing to put the effort in.’

Travel Inn’s purple corporate palette will be employed uniformly across all sites, abandoning a previous policy of using different colours for different price segments.

‘The main thrust of the brief was to introduce simplification and consistent application of the new identity so customers recognise Travel Inn first and foremost,’ explains Vibrandt account director Andrew Collins.

Vibrandt won the brief in August 2001 in a two-way pitch for an undisclosed fee.

Travel Inn’s new branding was launched last week at the group’s new Sheffield City Centre Travel Inn Metro. It will be rolled out across the chain’s remaining 350 hotels over the next 18 months.