Best Western Upgrades w/ Vsat, Standards

<B> Best Western Upgrades w/ Vsat, Standards</B>

By David Meyer

Best Western, the hotel association, is moving aggressively to counter the influx of limited service hotels by raising its level of standards, internal communications and management systems, and by focusing more than ever on the business travel market.

New CEO Jim Evans, the longtime Hyatt senior executive (<I>BTN,</I> Nov. 2, 1998), said he was surprised by recent research Best Western commissioned that showed that "51 percent of our business is corporate travel."

Evans said Best Western will be looking to expand its year-old Best Business program, for companies that book more than 500 room nights in the United States or 1,000 internationally. The program, led by managing director of worldwide sales Eric Otto, currently has more than 160 customers enrolled.

Meeting demand for last room availability is an important part of the hotel chain's strategy going forward, Evans said, and the Vsat system it currently is installing will deliver that capability. Best Western plans to install the Hughes Network satellite communications system, currently in place at more than 500 properties, at every property by the end of this year. Initially the communications system has been used as a platform for Best Western's Lynx reservations system and for credit card processing. Once the system has been rolled out worldwide, it will support a two-way e-mail interface and deliver the data needed to provide corporate customers with last room availability.

The association's members have paid an extra assessment of about $15 million over the past three years for the system that Evans said "will streamline our decision making. We know in a cumbersome way who our best customers are. With Vsat, we can collect that data and use it more efficiently."

Chairman of Best Western's board of governors, Mike Scholz, who owns a Best Western in Big Sky, Mont., said a growing number of properties--more than 350 to date--have rolled out Business Plus rooms to at least 10 percent of their total room inventory. In addition to Best Western's standard free local calls and long distance access, the business class rooms include two-line phones, dataports, desks that are at least 24 x 48 inches and ergonomic chairs.

Scholz said Best Western also is in the process of taking inventory of its small meetings and by next month expects to have "a clearer picture of who we are" in the group travel arena.

The board will remain the key strategy group for the hotel association, said Scholz, but it is moving now toward having its paid professional staff take the tactical lead by "defining the process for the management team to take on greater responsibility for day-to-day decision making."

Anticipating having an even stronger hand in the not-too-distant future, Evans said he will continue to hold quality as the highest priority and finds "the opportunity to build quality and consistency exciting and compelling."

Scholz said Best Western has raised its standards for bedding and bathroom vanity areas and has put new focus on exterior curbside and public areas. Meanwhile, the company has designed a new global program to tighten quality control through an improved inspection system.

"We're reformatting the inspection process," Scholz said, noting that the association's management team was working on reducing a 26-page inspection document to seven pages. It will be presented to members this summer and, with their approval, will be implemented in the fall.

Scholz said competition from new limited service hotels has driven some of the hotel association's efforts. "New-build chains have defined the limited service category. We have to get more consistent in amenities and services," he said.

Scholz noted that half of the new properties that joined Best Western in the past three years are new builds, but acknowledged that some properties in the chain are more than 50 years old.

The association added 160 properties in the past year, but quality control and attrition brought net growth down to 100. During the recent acquisition of Consort Hotels in the United Kingdom, company officials said 20 properties probably will not measure up to Best Western standards. Best Western currently has 2,300 properties in the United States and another 1,800 around the globe.

The best way for Best Western to compete is to tout the differences in its properties. "Differentiation is a win for our properties," Scholz said, noting that more than half of them are three-star or better.

While it needs to go to a vote, he wants the association to implement "descriptors," detailing the characteristics of the different properties, by the first of next year. If he and the other property owner-members of the seven-person board are successful in advancing quality standards and putting descriptors in place, "I, as a Best Western property owner, stand to gain immensely," Scholz said.

To ensure that the hotel association's membership has all the information that it needs to make informed decisions on these topics, Best Western recently spent about $1.5 million to commission three separate research studies of customer preferences and quality assurance. The research, done by D.K. Shifflet, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers, focused on the differences between limited and full service properties and between the hotel group's business and leisure customer segments. The research indicated that customers are concerned about consistency and that there currently is a considerable amount of confusion about the brand.