This success story consisted of the development of Alua’s brand identity that coherently reflected the chain’s attributes and its characteristic concept of hospitality.
Alua Hotels & Resorts
Alua is a young hotel chain with a vocation for the acquisition and management of hotel establishments. With the intention of focusing on the Spanish holiday market, it concentrates its activities on the Balearic and Canary Islands and the Mediterranean Coast.
The chain offers modern, unique and fun beachfront vacations. It creates welcoming atmospheres by refurbishing hotels and repositioning them in the market. It designs, in a flexible way, a customized solution for each hotel and differentiates itself in each of the markets in which it is present.
Aware of the expectations of its customers, Alua works on innovation and implementation of tools and resources necessary to know their preferences and needs and keep up with the best practices in customer service to strengthen its reputation and positioning in the market.
The challenge
The solution
.Results
.The challenge
The tourism sector is currently undergoing an important change: the change in consumer behavior due to the boom of the Internet and the saturation of companies in the tourism market. Faced with the wide range of hospitality establishments, consumers go to the Internet to research each hotel chainthat may fit their needs. Customers are no longer interested only in prices or hotel location, they want to find the experiences that match their interests, which poses a new challenge for hotels: differentiating themselves even more among the competition.
The first impression of an establishment’s differentiation reaches customers through the hotel brand. Consumers are exposed to a multitude of tourism brands, and each of these brands generates diverse feelings and thoughts that help them build the image of each establishment, and opt for one or the other depending on their identification with the company’s values. That is why it is essential to develop a brand that conveys the intangible values of the hotel chain in a clear and coherent way and through adequate communication. If you want to create a positive bond with the customer from the first moment, the message of the hotel must reach consumers without distortions.
Alua Hotels & Resorts is a young hotel chain, but with a team with more than 20 years of experience in the hotel sector. Its team, therefore, has values based on the management experience of its founders. With a team of professionals who know the needs of the tourism market and solid values, it is essential that the chain has a brand that transmits all the experience behind its name, as this is its most powerful differentiator. The challenge for Alua Hotels & Resorts was, then, to build a solid and coherent brand that would represent its characteristic vision of hospitality and all its attributes, and that would be transmitted homogeneously through all the channels through which Alua Hotels communicates with consumers.
The brand is the Consumer Communication.
The solution
.1. The logo
.
We presented Alua with a logo that consisted of the name Alua Hotels & Resorts written with certain typographic characteristics, placing the name Alua as the protagonist of the logo. The logotype is accompanied by a imagotipo, a descriptive symbol and linked to the business area of Alua.
Two versions were presented: a main version and a secondary version, in which the logo is structured in different ways, so that the company could have the secondary version of the logo in case the use of the main one was restricted in any of its different application formats.
Then we worked on the development of the logo for the subbrands of Alua (AluaSun, AluaVillage and AluaSoul). The imagotype of the main logo was used in all these new logos, and differentiation was applied both in the colors and in a variation in the typographic features. In this way each sub-brand had a different identitythanks to its specific logos, while maintaining its relationship with the main logo of Alua Hotels.
2. Graphic elements
.
The color is one of the most decisive factors in the attractiveness of the Alua brand. We developed a chromatic range with colors that matched Alua’s main color, so that it would continue to be the main color of the company’s brand, but with the possibility of having secondary colors that would not steal its prominence.
For the corporate typography we chose the “Source Sans Pro” typeface family. The reason we chose it was because of its legibility, and its formal and friendly appearance. In addition, it has an extensive family (light, regular, semibold, bold, light italic, italic, semibold italic and bold italic) and is suitable for both online and offline applications.
Alua’s product photography had to reflect Alua’s values, so we made a selection of inspirational photography. These images met specific characteristics, such as first the detail plane, since at short distances the honesty, quality and freshness that define Alua are best appreciated.
There are limited applications that require additional elements in case the above elements cannot be applied, so we designed some graphic resources. One of them was the creation of a symbol, which represents the phases of the moon, and its function is to accompany the titles and highlighted texts. The second graphic resource proposed was a selection of frames for use in backgrounds. These wefts represent the natural elements visible at night: the sea, the stars and the moon. In this way, the patterns reinforce the idea that gives rise to the brand and its image.
In order for Alua Hotels to carry out the brand applications properly, we made a proposal of decorative elements in order for the applications to comply with a uniform vision of the brand.
Our next proposal was the iconographic style that would act as visual reinforcement of the idea that appears in the Alua texts, or even act as a substitute. Our proposed iconography were the simple lines and pure shapes, which confer a modern aesthetic and friendly appearance.
3. Applications
.
To demonstrate to Alua what the incorporation of all the elements into their style of applications would be, we developed a presentation of sample applications so that they would have an overview of the application of the logo, color palette, corporate typography, graphic resources and iconographic style.
Finally, we developed a corporate identity manual with the necessary rules for the construction of the corporate identity of Alua Hotels and its sub-brands, so that the whole team can apply the brand in all the chain’s communication formats. The homogeneous monitoring of the application strategy is essential for the company to have a strong>strong and global image at all times.
Results
.After the implementation of our solution, Alua Hotels has a graphic image that conveys its unique identity in the hotel sector. Alua’s new visual style is related to its intangible values and its business area, so we have contributed to give Alua’s brand an identifiable profile for consumers.
- A strong brand for Alua in all its applications. Thanks to the design of the various graphic elements, Alua has all of them available for application in all its formats. Thus the Alua brand presents a unique identity in a homogeneous way in all its applications.
- The Alua brand has a unique identity in a homogeneous way in all its applications.
- Graphic style associated with the brand. The characteristic vision of hospitality and its experience in the sector are reflected in the company’s brand with a fresh and professional touch.
- The brand’s graphic style associated with the brand.
- Communication with a strong and global image. By following the rules to comply with the brand balance in all its applications, Alua has improved its communication system by transmitting a homogeneous, solid and undistorted image, so that its message clearly reaches its customers.
Recursos gráficos que transmiten los valores de Alua
Una de nuestras soluciones fue la creación de un símbolo, que representa las fases de la luna, y cuya función consiste en acompañar los títulos y textos destacados. El segundo recurso gráfico propuesto fue una selección de tramas para su uso en fondos. Estas tramas representan los elementos naturales visibles en la noche: el mar, las estrellas y la luna. De esta manera, las tramas refuerzan la idea que da origen a la marca y a su imagen.
Graphic resources that convey Alua’s values
.
One of our solutions was the creation of a symbol, representing the phases of the moon, whose function is to accompany the highlighted titles and texts. The second graphic resource proposed was a selection of patterns for use in backgrounds. These patterns represent the natural elements visible at night: the sea, the stars and the moon. In this way, the wefts reinforce the idea that gives rise to the brand and its image.
