Marriott has done some dumb stuff in their time. There’s been data breach after data breach. They ruined the Starwood program when they bought out SPG. And, of, course, you’ve got the whole Marriott Bonvoy debacle that’s STILL so bad that not only has the term “Bonvoyed” made it into Urban Dictionary (heads up – adult language), but the Bonvoyed.com website is still active and running strong, and this hysterical item is still for sale, over a year and a half after the term #Bonvoyed was coined! (someone please tell my husband I still want one, preferably in Dark Heather or Cranberry. He’ll know what style/size [but if not, Men’s shirt, the same size as my BA shirt].)
Now, if you consider the various Marriott brands, most Marriott properties have what would be considered reasonable names. Phuket Marriott Resort And Spa. St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel London (wow, was that place beautiful!). Hotel Goldener Hirsch (oh, how we adore this hotel!). Moxy Phoenix Tempe/ASU Area (we are SO NOT their intended demographic but we really liked that place!). So you’d think when it comes to hotel names, their decisions wouldn’t be on the “dumb” side of the things Marriott does.
Until now.
Marriott is building a new hotel on Walt Disney World property. It’ll be the third Marriott-owned property at the complex after they inherited the Walt Disney World Dolphin and Walt Disney World Swan when they bought Sheraton. The new hotel will be within walking distance to the “back entrance” of Epcot, between Swan and Dolphin.
Photo below: Upper left = Dolphin. Center right = Swan. Lower left = new hotel
Photo taken 5/30/20
PC: Bioreconstruct // @bioreconstruct // used with permission
When Marriott first announced the new hotel in late 2018, it was going to be called The Cove Hotel (I also saw it referenced as The Cove Disney World). It was planned to focus on business travelers, and would be 14 stories tall, with 343 rooms (almost half of them suites that could be transformed into meeting space). Groundbreaking began in December of that year. All was fine, construction has been going on ever since, and the hotel is scheduled to open in summer 2021.
And then they decided to change the name.
So now the hotel won’t be called The Cove, but the Walt Disney World Swan Reserve. And that’s a problem, because WDW already has a property with the word Swan in it – the aforementioned Marriott-run Walt Disney World Swan.
You’d think it wouldn’t be much of an issue. I mean, just one word in the two hotels’ names are the same. But there is already so much of a precedent:
- There are two Disney resorts in the U.S. – Disneyland is in Anaheim, CA and Walt Disney World is in Orlando, FL. The number of people who refer to WDW as DL is staggering.
- Walt Disney World owns a hotel called the Yacht Club and one called the Beach Club. They’re right next to each other and let me tell you, people get them confused ALL the time.
- Walt Disney World also has Fort Wilderness, which is a campground, and The Wilderness Lodge, which is a hotel. They’re two separate entities separated by either a boat ride or a 5(ish) minute drive. Again, people continuously go to one, thinking it’s the other.
- And then there’s the whole brouhaha that Orlando International Airport has been making for over 8 years (maybe they do have a point?)
I think calling the new hotel the WDW Swan Reserve is going to confuse a bunch of people. Granted, that and the “other” Swan hotel will be near each other so mix-ups should be easily fixed. But wouldn’t it be smarter to have a name that doesn’t cause a mix up to begin with?
Feature Photo: Swan and Dolphin
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
10 comments
Good point. Not to mention that “Swan Reserve” sounds more like a wildlife reserve/attraction in animal kingdom than a hotel.
Sounds fancy. How about just calling it the Disney World Swan Reserve Parc Enclave Resort and Spa by Marriott instead. Marketing fail.
I disagree and feel the name is appropriate. It’s a higher end property and so more savy travelers will know which they are reserving.
I hope that would be the case, but Yacht Club and Beach Club are higher end properties at WDW, as is Wilderness Lodge. “Savy” is not necessarily the same as “observant.”
“Marriott on the falls” and “Marriott fallsview” a few blocks apart. It’s like they’re just trying to cause themselves problems.
Does anyone else feel like Mariott is greedy enough to buy the Starwood brand which in turn gave them the Dolphin and Swan already?
Now, this virus has travel & tourism down the tubes so Marriott will have 3 properties within close radius of each other.
Good luck making ROI with this!
If it was being run as a tower of the Swan, like when Elara was Planet Hollywood Towers, then I’d understand the name, but it is not “part of” the Swan. It is being built across the street, on top of the tennis courts, so the name makes no sense.
The amazing part is that Marriott paid a room full of people sit around and decide the name, and this is what they came up with. Good work if you can get it.
I don’t know why Marriott didn’t follow the Dolphin/Swan theme and simply name it the Peacock, or the Panda, etc.
Why did the change it from the Cove? Because of that dolphin movie?
No idea. They never said why. But whatever their reasons, you’d still think they would have put a little more thought into it.
There’s a Beverly Hills 90210 episode about a similar situation, re: Palm Springs hotel names. Doesn’t end well, they can’t find the right hotel…