Take your pick: Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Preferred Hotels, Luxury Hotels of the World, Relais & Chateaux, Conde Nast Johansens and more. There are several prestigious collections of properties that are designed to fit your hotel’s needs.
Is the expensive membership worth it from a PR perspective? I vote yes only when you have done your research as to which hotel family will yield the most benefits. It’s easy to fall into a box or category, but important to maintain the unique characteristics that make your hotel stand out. Generally, most hotel collections require a set of standards to be met by your property. Even if you meet them, sometimes down the road you might find that joining it wasn’t the right fit, and your membership did not yield the expected benefits. In other cases, you might choose to spend the time to shop around until you find the right hotel collection.
From a PR standpoint, the branding acquired by joining a hotel collection membership can help with recruting additional press inquiries, tours, and other media initiatives.
Remember, it is also up to you to get the benefits by joining a hotel family, so make sure you do your share of announcements and marketing about your membership to print/web/social media and guests, too. It is important for you to do your share of the work in order to get the word out to the right audience.