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Best Western Refining Rather than Radicalizing
The descriptor strategy is in place. Is it a hit or miss? Here's what happening from the Best Western Annual Conference.
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
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It’s another week and another conference as fall’s convention season continues to power on. This week we’re at Best Western’s annual convention here in Orlando where we got the opportunity to speak with company executives and listen in on what they shared with representatives of their member hotels.
There wasn’t any huge groundbreaking news; rather the event focused more on reflecting upon the success of implementing brand descriptors earlier this year and continuing with ways to fine tune and improve operations and individual hotel profitability.
The program, which designates every hotel in the system either as a Best Western, Best Western Plus or Best Western Premier was designed to clarify the specific type of experience a guest will have and give customers an understanding if the hotel would fit in the two, three or four star category. Since it launched in February 15 hotels have been designated Premier while more than 800 are now Plus hotels as well as 1,300 traditional hotels.
According to Best Western’s President and CEO David Kong, the division of the brand into three separate monikers is helping to push rates in each segment ahead of this year’s industry’s averages.
He said Best Western Plus hotels in the United States achieved a RevPAR Index of 109 against the entire Upper Mid-scale Segment. The traditional hotels achieved a RevPAR Index of 110 against the entire Mid-Scale segment. Additionally, the company saw and overall RevPAR lift of 5.5 percent, 10.3 percent and 11.7 percent for the three tiers.
Kong was delighted to share the news that traditional Best Western hotels were able to move revenue more than expected. “There is no evidence the Best Western level hotels were disadvantaged by the Descriptor Program. In fact, the halo effect has enabled the Best Western level hotels to achieve very impressive RevPAR Index. Of course, the Best Western Plus level hotels have also achieved very high RevPAR Index, especially when one considers their competition,” Kong told the more than 2,000 conference attendees who also noted during his speech that about 100 hotels in the system have moved from a two to three diamond rating.
The descriptor program has also created an increase in RFPs by 22.8 percent as meeting planners now better understand what each specific hotel has to offer.
Board Chairman P.G. West heralded the descriptors as a major leap forward in keeping best Western relevant to consumers. “In the last year or two we have come together and been able to work well on behalf of … the long-term viability of our brand. Descriptors was something we had never been able to do in past decades, but this year we did it,” he said, encouraging hotel owners the Board is now working on the areas of design, quality assurance and sales.
In fact, Best Western is again upping its sales and marketing budget up to $65 million and growing its sales force by an additional 20 percent, according to Kong.
One area in which Best Western executives want to define the brand is through cleanliness so the company has introduced what they’re dubbing the Ultra Clean Room.
“This takes cleanliness to another level in the guestroom,” said SVP of Brand Management & Member Services Ron Pohl. The plan is to make available to hotels products for housekeeping and maintenance teams to super deep clean hotels and keep them clean through the use of technology such as ultraviolet wands and the use of black lights to really suss out where those germs are hiding.
“We do a very detailed walk through with owners and management and work with them to create a process to bring hotel to an almost like new condition. We then, as part of training, show them how to use backlights and ultraviolet wands on places like door handles switches on lamps, phones, etc. that don’t get cleaned on a regular basis,” said Pohl. He also said the organization is rolling out a germ resistant television remote control. “There is also an element of recognizing the work housekeepers do in the industry and create a sense of pride. We really believe they are the hardest working people in hotels.”
Finally, Kong shared with us that the company is continuing to do as much as possible to make running a hotel simpler and friendlier for owners. The idea is to take all the tough decision making out of the hands of the owner so they can concentrate more on servicing guests. For example, the company is working on simplifying rate structures to just a few so owners don’t have to spend too much time changing rates across the available myriad channels out there.
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