Newsmaker: Best Western Helm Taken By Hyatt Hand, Promus Exec

<B> Newsmaker: Best Western Helm Taken By Hyatt Hand, Promus Exec</B>

By Maria P. Vallejo

Thirty-year hospitality industry veteran James Evans is stepping up to lead Best Western International as its president and CEO. Evans will the be the first new CEO at Best Western since Ron Evans took the spot in 1980.

When he takes office in December, Evans will focus on improving brand quality and consistency, a project already underway. "We will fully implement the global strategic management process that already has begun and continue to focus on it. And we have to have more consistent adherence to our brand standards," he said. "The focus of quality really revolves around service standards and customer packaging that makes us look more like a consistent brand."

Assuring across the board training and service is not an easy task for a brand that has more than 3,800 hotels in 78 countries and territories. But Evans is a man with the experience to do just that. Before accepting his current position, he spent 20 years at Hyatt in a variety of positions, including senior vice president of sales and marketing, and was named one of the most influential executives in the travel industry by Business Travel News in 1991. In 1996 he was named executive vice president of operations for DoubleTree Hotels and later senior vice president of operations for Promus Corp. after their merger.

Industry insiders are quick to highlight his strengths. Former Hyatt Hotels & Resorts president Darryl Hartley-Leonard, now chairman of PGI International in Arlington, Va., credited Evans with helping grow Hyatt from 55 to 112 hotels during his time there. "It was our most rapid period of expansion. There was the complication of growing the business of the existing chain of hotels, but he was pivotal in opening those hotels and markets," Hartley-Leonard said. "He's a first class fellow and to a great extent, whatever success I had at Hyatt was attributable to him."

At Best Western, Evans will attempt to standardize customer service worldwide in a group of properties that show no similar structural layout--something he sees as a strength, not a weakness. "I think the one great thing about our company is that not every product looks the same," he said. "But even though they look different, they are the same internally. We sound alike when we talk to customers and people know what to expect."

Best Western's internal structure is unique as well. It is a member-driven organization that gives everyone financial benefits if the program succeeds. "Everyone has an equity participation in the brand," Evans said. "When we talk about quality, brand standards and issues like that, everyone has financial purposes for wanting to be a part of making those two things possible.