Higgins Takes Helm Of Best Western Int'l

Best Western International has named Thomas Higgins president and CEO. Higgins, a 30-year industry veteran, joined the Phoenix-based member association from Days Inn Worldwide, a Cendant Corp. brand where he also was president and CEO.

As he had at Days Inn, Higgins faces issues of quality control and guest expectations in his new job, if he is to raise Best Western's profile among business travelers. "The underlying challenges are execution and consistency. Every time travelers roll by a Best Western sign, they've got to know what they can expect," he said. "If they have a great experience at the sign one time, but a poor experience the next time, they'll just go somewhere else. There's simply too much competition out there for us to risk jeopardizing customer loyalty." Higgins said Best Western recently implemented a set of global product standards, but that there still was more work to be done.

Higgins joined Best Western, a midprice chain with more than 4,000 member properties, in the midst of an industrywide downturn. However, he has been through other market contractions and takes the long view. "What happens is that full-service hotels begin to protect their market, and you wind up having rate compression, where on certain nights of the week, you're able to buy anything from a midprice to an upscale hotel room for roughly the same price," he said. "At the moment, everybody is taking a hard look at this shrinking market where the business traveler basically has disappeared. But at the end of the day, you have to capture marketshare and the way to do that is through pricing."

A downturn makes operators focus on the basics, said Higgins, who earlier in his career held senior marketing positions at La Quinta and Motel 6, as well as Sun Country Airlines. "When times are good, you have a tendency to get a little sloppy because you take things for granted. Like, 'You don't want this room, Mr. or Ms. Traveler, well, there are five people behind you who do.' But that's far from the case right now." Higgins said the industry has to concentrate on providing the core services and amenities that not only get business travelers in the door initially, but bring them back. "It's the only way you're going to reverse the industry slump, both short term and long term," he said. "Good operators continue to succeed. Average operators find out they are the ones who get bypassed."