Methodology For BTN's Top U.S. Hotel Chain Survey
Business Travel News' Top U.S. Hotel Chain Survey is an annual measure of corporate travel buyers' opinions of the lodging brands that their companies and clients use.
Business Travel News sent an e-mail to a random sample of 6,000 corporate travel managers and business travel agents in its subscriber base who had indicated that they make hotel buying decisions, asking them to rank hotels with which they do business by answering one of five questionnaires regarding various price point segments for hotels and extended stay lodging chains. BTN tabulated 605 usable responses.
To qualify to rate a particular hotel company, respondents were required to have done business with that chain within the past 12 months.
There are 10 hotel segments in this year's survey: deluxe, upper upscale, upscale, midprice with and without food and beverage, economy, budget and extended stay, which is broken into three segments: upper upscale, upscale and midprice.
Depending on the segment, the hotels were rated on anywhere from six to 13 attributes, including quality of food, physical appearance, corporate rate programs, quality of the business center and meeting facilities, and overall price-value relationship. Ratings are presented on a numerical scale from one to 10, with the number highlighted indicating the highest score for that category.
This survey only presents data about those hotel chains for which respondents reported statistically significant usage.
Not every respondent rated every hotel company that appeared in every category, and those respondents who left out a category in their ratings were not included in the average rating for that particular category or company.
The overall average weighted score indicates that the composite tabulations were affected by the fact that some categories drew more responses than did others. The weighted score assigns more emphasis to the categories in which the respondents provided ratings more frequently.