Hotel Brand Conversions Reset the Towel Specification

QINGDAO, China — A hotel brand conversion reopens a question the property thought it had settled: what the guest towel is, and who gets to decide. When a property joins a different brand, that brand's written standard becomes the reference document, and the towel the previous owner approved may not be the towel the new standard describes. IHG said conversions accounted for roughly half of its U.S. openings and 60 percent of its signings in the third quarter, with most of those hotels coming from rival brands rather than the independent market [1].

A Conversion Changes the Standard, Not Just the Decor

Two announcements from the same week show the difference. Extended Stay America completed a conversion of a 113-room hotel in San Antonio into its Premier Suites brand, a renovation carried out to meet that brand's standards [2]. In the same week, Atlanta Marriott Peachtree Corners reported a property-wide renovation covering guestrooms, meeting space, a club lounge and a fitness center [3]. Both projects replaced finishes and furniture, but only the first announcement names a brand standard as the measure.

The distinction matters more to a consumables supplier than to an interior contractor. Paint is signed off once. A towel is reordered every cycle, and the document that governs it, the brand's linen or amenity standard, stays in force for as long as the flag does. If the conversion brings a different room count, guest mix or housekeeping routine, the towel order changes with it. That change lands on the first delivery, not on the punch list.

Half of the Openings Now Come From Another Brand

IHG's quarterly update is the useful figure because it splits the pipeline instead of describing it. Conversions made up about half of U.S. openings and 60 percent of signings, and the company said most of those hotels switched from another brand rather than arriving from the independent market [1]. In the Americas, its conversion brands grew system size 39 percent at voco and more than 80 percent at Garner year to date, while consensus net room growth for the year moved to 4.8 percent from 4.2 percent [1].

What that does to an order book is change its shape. A new-build order arrives with a drawing set and room to negotiate. A conversion order arrives with a date that is already fixed, a room count that is already known, and a standard someone else has written. The buyer is less choosing a towel from a catalogue than proving a towel meets a document. This suggests the quoting conversation should open with the standard and only then reach the price list.

Why the Guest Towel Comes Up First

Conversions do not usually start with soft goods, but they reach them early, and the reason is arithmetic rather than taste. A towel is the item a guest touches most often and the one whose shortfall is most visible: a thin towel reads at arm's length, long before anyone notices the headboard. It is also cheap to change next to case goods, which makes it the first place a new operator looks for a visible improvement that still fits the opening budget.

The second reason is operational. A converted property inherits a laundry arrangement it did not design. Some keep linen in-house, some send it out, and the two arrangements measure a towel by different things: wash and dryer behavior on one side, the per-piece charge on the invoice on the other. Ask which one applies before choosing a material, because the answer moves the specification.

Five Questions to Settle Before You Quote

Most of the risk in a conversion order sits in five questions, and all five can be answered before a sample is made.

• Get the brand's written linen or amenity standard and read the section that governs guest towels, not the summary page. That is the document an inspection will enforce.
• Ask for the reopening date and the first delivery date separately. They are rarely the same week, and the gap is what a production schedule has to fit into.
• Ask whether laundry stays in-house or goes out, then price the towel against that cycle rather than against a shelf.
• Ask what the previous brand approved. A specification that already passed one inspection is a cheaper starting point than a blank sheet, and the difference between the old document and the new one is usually small and specific.
• Ask for the pack format housekeeping will actually handle at turnover, because the format decides how many steps sit between the trolley and the shelf.

Two of those answers decide what gets ordered and three decide what it costs. None of them requires a factory visit.

What Jaroll Brings to a Conversion Specification

The questions end in a document, and a document is what a factory has to answer. Jaroll works from a confirmed specification rather than a category: size, GSM, material, texture, color, fold and pack count are settled per SKU before an order is priced. The towel range runs from 40 × 80 cm for guest-hand formats to 60–80 × 100–160 cm for bath formats, in 40–130 g/m², in viscose, viscose and polyester, cotton, or wood pulp blends.

QINGDAO JAROLL HYGIENE PRODUCTS CO., LTD. makes those towels as folded bulk packs, with individual wrapping discussed per project, and ships them to distributors and private-label programmes in Japan, Korea, the United States, Europe and the Middle East. A conversion order is a short list against a fixed date, which suits a factory that quotes per SKU: MOQ, lead time and sample timing are confirmed in writing and subject to sales confirmation. Distributors can put one material decision across both formats, since our hotel bath towels are built to the same weight range as the guest towels.

Sources

1. Skift, 2026-10-22. IHG Says It's Winning Hotels From Rival Brands. https://skift.com/2026/10/22/ihg-says-its-winning-hotels-from-rival-brands/
2. LODGING Magazine, 2026-10-22. Extended Stay America Announces Conversion of San Antonio Hotel. https://lodgingmagazine.com/extended-stay-america-announces-conversion-of-san-antonio-hotel/
3. LODGING Magazine, 2026-10-22. Atlanta Marriott Peachtree Corners Completes Renovation. https://lodgingmagazine.com/atlanta-marriott-peachtree-corners-completes-renovation/