Reposition or rebrand: How RBH shapes distinct identities for independent hotels

The transformation of an independent hotel is centred on market insight. To shape a brand’s identity, we go through a thorough analysis of every aspect of the market and its opportunities, understanding the destination and guest demands alongside the hotel owner’s objectives. It’s a complete process and isn’t just a design exercise, it’s a business transformation that delivers real commercial impact, explains Group Director of Marketing for RBH Hospitality Management, Andrew Farrow. 

RBH has recently completed the repositioning of The Met Hotel Leeds, a much-loved landmark in the heart of the city. The hotel has been an important part of the Leeds story since 1899, and the property has been reimagined for today’s modern traveller, whilst preserving the building’s historic features. Through this major transformation, The Met Hotel Leeds has relaunched as a refined lifestyle destination, offering carefully chosen interiors, vibrant social spaces and an elevated hospitality experience.

The Met Hotel Leeds

The project follows on from RBH’s successful rebranding of The Milner York, formerly The Principal York, just a year prior. Both The Met Hotel Leeds and The Milner York hold deep historic significance in their respective cities, yet their journeys took two very different routes: one preserves its heritage under new branding; whilst the other has been reimagined through a major transformation but retains its name.

However, both projects shared the same goal: to unlock the full commercial potential of the hotels and emerge as leaders in today’s market. Andrew Farrow shares his key strategic considerations when approaching a successful brand transformation.

The brand as an operational asset

RBH’s strong track record spans global brands and independent hotels, giving the team a unique understanding of brands in the market. “We’re effectively brand-agnostic but brand-fluid,” comments Andrew.

Where many management companies see brands as an external layer, RBH views brands as an operational asset, one that drives culture, performance and guest experience in equal measure. Andrew explains “Our marketing team works in partnership with revenue, operations and on-property teams so that positioning guides every aspect, from recruitment and service style to pricing strategy.”

Each independent project begins with a bespoke approach, built around local identity and aligned with owner ambitions driven by market insight. “I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years, working with everything from global luxury leaders to independent branded boutique properties, and there’s no single route to success, just a finely tuned understanding of how brand and performance reinforce each other.”

A bespoke approach

The two different transformation strategies highlights RBH’s ability to provide a bespoke approach to each project, and to build the concept around what makes the specific property unique. “It is crucial to tailor each transformation strategy and look at every project as an opportunity to create an exceptional bespoke solution,” notes Andrew.

In York, we led a complete rebrand that reintroduced the historic hotel as The Milner York, built around the vision of becoming ‘the best loved hotel in York’. Drawing on the city’s railway heritage, the team created a distinctive story that influenced every element, from design and service style to brand culture and local partnerships. A year on, The Milner York has achieved record profit and revenue across all departments, with its service score seeing a 30% increase to 92% year-to-date. The hotel has also earned national recognition in The Times, and hotel GM, Andy Barnsdale won GM of the Year at The Boutique Hotelier awards.

In Leeds, we chose to retain The Met Hotel Leeds' historic name but reimagine its identity entirely. The repositioning focused on shifting from a traditional, service mindset to a more confident, experience driven ethos that aligns with the hotel being a contemporary lifestyle destination. Guided by the vision to become ‘the most exciting independent hotel in the North and number one in Leeds’.

Importantly, both projects share a common thread: transformation built on insight, collaboration and commerciality. “Whether it’s a rebrand or a repositioning, it’s about unlocking potential, aligning with the market, and creating an identity that feels true to the property, its people and community.”

A data and partnership-led process

RBH’s success has always been rooted in the strength of its relationships with their hotel owners. “Owners bring a deep understanding of the asset and investment vision, while we contribute strategic, creative and commercial expertise. Collaboration and transparency are key, setting out clear objectives together and success metrics around a realistic timeline.”

Andrew also emphasises that data needs to come first and the importance of market insights to create authentic storytelling. “Marketing and design are emotional topics, but data helps steer the project rationally,” he explains. “Regular checkpoints ensure every stakeholder feels ownership of the project. Ultimately, our role is to translate an owner’s ambition into a credible, market-leading strategy that delivers financial and brand value.”

From The Milner York’s incredible year to The Met Hotel Leeds’ bold repositioning, both projects prove that successful transformation requires more than just a design refresh. Andrew Farrow concludes: “It’s about creating a shared vision and culture that connects people, owners, teams and guests alike to ensure brand longevity. For RBH, every transformation is a bespoke exercise based on data, alongside balancing heritage, design and market opportunity.”

Q&A with Andrew

‘How is the Leeds Met positioned against some of the more well established hotels in Leeds, including the contemporary lifestyle destinations and the brands?

The Met Hotel Leeds is positioned as a confident, independent alternative to Leeds’ more established branded hotels and contemporary lifestyle destinations. Against large international brands, the repositioning moves The Met away from uniform, service‑led hospitality and towards a more expressive, experience‑driven proposition, while still retaining the operational scale, polish and meetings capability those brands are known for. In contrast to contemporary lifestyle competitors, which often rely on boutique scale, minimalist design or trend‑led concepts, The Met differentiates itself through its landmark heritage, generous public spaces and commercial gravitas, combining Victorian character with a modern lifestyle identity. This positioning allows The Met to stand apart as a culturally relevant destination hotel that offers the personality and authenticity of a lifestyle brand, with the credibility, scale and longevity that many newer or more niche competitors lack-establishing it as a market‑leading independent rather than a follower of either category.

‘One of the many challenges any hotel renovation and/or re-brand faces is the multitude of poor online reviews that pre-date the renovation. Did you have a specific strategy to ensure customers understood that these reviews no longer relate to the hotel in its current form?’

Yes, this was a recognised challenge and was addressed through a clear, platform‑specific strategy. The approach was split between Google Reviews and all other review channels. For OTAs and TripAdvisor, a formal “reset” was actioned at the end of the previous year, ensuring that post‑relaunch performance was assessed independently of historic sentiment. This allowed the new guest experience to be accurately reflected, with Booking.com now showing a strong post‑reset score of 9.1 (“Superb”) from December onwards. Google Reviews required a different approach due to us not renaming the property, with the strategy focused on leaving the listing intact while prioritising the generation of new, post‑refurbishment reviews to rebalance sentiment over time. This approach ensured prospective guests were increasingly presented with recent, relevant feedback, making it clear that older reviews related to a previous iteration of the hotel rather than its current form.

‘What was the single most important lesson learnt from The Met Hotel Leeds and The Milner York projects, from a marketing perspective?’

The single most important lesson from both The Met Hotel Leeds and The Milner York projects was that the boldest creative work only succeeds when it is anchored in insight, conviction and organisational belief—not when it tries to be safe. In both cases, the temptation could have been to soften the creative approach to appeal broadly, particularly given the scale of investment and the historic nature of the buildings. Instead, the lesson was that committing fully to a clear, distinctive point of view—grounded in market insight and a deep understanding of audience expectations—allowed the brands to stand out meaningfully in competitive markets. This required confidence not just in the visual identity, but in the tone of voice, experience design and cultural shift behind the brand. Where teams and owners were aligned behind a strong creative direction, the work resonated more clearly with guests, accelerated perception change and ultimately delivered greater commercial impact than a more cautious, diluted approach ever could.

This article has been written exclusively for the Hotel Marketing Association by Andrew Farrow of RBH Hospitality Management. It may be reproduced in part or in full, so long as full credit is given to the author and the HMA and a link to the full article is included.

March 2026