BWH Hotels' Chad Fletcher discusses:
- Repositioning BWH for corporate
- Staying competitive in midscale
- Exploring AI-driven efficiency
BWH Hotels earlier this year launched a new sales division aimed at corporate accounts the company historically has struggled to reach: buyers in the upscale and luxury segments who still associate the Best Western name with midscale. At the recent Global Business Travel Association Convention in Chicago, BWH SVP of worldwide sales Chad Fletcher spoke with BTN executive editor for hospitality Julie Sickel about repositioning the brand for corporate buyers, midscale's place in BWH's new vision and the appetite of hotel owners to embrace AI. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
BTN: When we spoke in June, you had just launched the upscale and luxury sales division for corporate accounts. Has that been a key focus here at GBTA?
Chad Fletcher: Absolutely. We've been developing our current portfolio of accounts for some time. Now we're really thinking about the next group of companies that will come in and kind of keep pace with our direction of growth, which has been in upscale, luxury, international and boutique. It's introducing us to this next group of buyers that maybe we've never been in the consideration set for. They've had this misperception—"it's Best Western, it's roadside, it's secondary, tertiary markets"—but our portfolio has evolved into something very different than that.
BTN: How are you positioning the brands? Is it one BWH, or are you speaking of WorldHotels and Best Western as separate entities?
Fletcher: It's collectively BWH. At the same time, when you're talking about 4,300 hotels in 100 countries, each buyer has a unique need. They have unique market needs combined with unique traveler needs. Add in the need to capture value or the benefit of managing a travel program, and that fits well into our space, too. We offer discounts and preferred pricing that you may not see in some of the more established large brands in this segment.
You also get that upscale and above property experience that the traveler's looking for—local feel, not necessarily cookie-cutter. We're hitting both sides: what the buyers need in terms of consistency and program fit and what the travelers want in terms of choice and experience.
BTN: You also have a significant midscale portfolio. Have you seen a pickup in business travel demand this year, and how are you thinking about competitors in this space?
Fletcher: Definitely. Full-year 2026 is looking stronger than 2025. We're seeing a ton of business travel into secondary and tertiary markets for project work. We're uniquely positioned in those markets where a lot of our competitors are not. I think they're now starting to see some of the value in that—they're pushing down into our core segments. This is part of the reason we want to push up, too, and go on the offensive around business travel, primary market, luxury and upscale. I think Covid taught a lot of people the value of essential travel. Blue-collar, gray-collar travel—that will always be our core. That unique, local experience I mentioned earlier is consistent across our brands, no matter the chain scale.
BTN: Given how much of your base is small business owners, what has the conversation or interest level been around AI and technological innovation?
Fletcher: From a sales perspective, we're teaching them how to fish, how to use AI tools to drive more local business. Our technology team is leaning into [AI] from an efficiency standpoint. Our call centers, as you can imagine, are leaning into AI and what that looks like in the future.
I think we're at this tipping point where a lot of people have been talking about it, and now the execution is starting to happen. [BWH president and CEO Larry Cuculic] is always talking about where this company will be in the next 10 years and what the main initiatives are that we can execute that will lean into AI and make things easier for our owners who may not be as heavily staffed on the sales side or operational side.
BTN: What about applying AI to the hotel request-for-proposals process?
Fletcher: We're really looking hard at that. We have a great RFP system today, especially around transient—a lot of the stuff we're talking about at GBTA is around RFPs coming through Cvent, and how you're responding. A lot of these templates are very repetitive—AI could start to alleviate some of that. One of my early learnings when I came to BWH late last year was that the company is really dialed in on that hotel support side for RFPs. We're very high-touch. We want to get to a point where we're still high-touch but leaning into the tech side to make us faster and more efficient.
BTN: With WorldHotels in your portfolio, are you pursuing more group business?
Fletcher: We need to get buyers and planners more aware of the product. A lot of it comes down to responsiveness: In this industry, the first three brands to respond typically win, and you've got to do it within four hours. We're leaning into initiatives to do that consistently across the portfolio. Group is still driving a lot of midweek growth, and it's outperforming year over year. Our demand in North America has flipped—we have plenty of weekend business but need more midweek. A lot of competitors have the opposite issue. We're leaning into group and transient to boost Sunday-through-Thursday occupancy, which drives better rate and better weekend business, too.