The continued evolution of La Quinta Inns & Suites was on full display last week at the brand council meeting in Irving, TX at the company’s corporate headquarters. A team of 16—six elected franchisees (a seventh was absent), nine corporate executives and facilitator/consultant Lee Dushoff—spent a full day in the company’s training center discussing the brand’s performance in 2009 and strategies for the new year and beyond.

Less than 10 years ago, La Quinta didn’t even have a franchise program, let alone an open dialogue between the two sometimes-opposing sides of a hotel company. Although CEO Wayne Goldberg and Chief Development Officer Raj Trivedi were clearly leading the meeting, the franchise partners had a voice, and oftentimes, the loudest. And that was the point of the recently formed council, according to Goldberg.

“It doesn’t matter how well we’re doing something today, we can always do better tomorrow,” he told the council to open the meeting, which also included a handful of media members and other corporate employees. “There are no barriers, just complete transparency with internal and external forces coming together. Hopefully we come up with a grand-slam idea, but most games are won with a series of base hits. We don’t ever want to get to the top of that summit. We always want to be in a perpetual state of climbing and hopefully a base hit comes out of this.”

Despite a challenging year, La Quinta continued its march toward 1,000 properties while setting new highs in many key indices. The company opened 81 hotels in 23 states and is now just shy of 800 properties. The only corporate-owned location to debut last year was in the heart of downtown Chicago. It swung the pendulum of franchisee ownership to 51 percent of the portfolio; a huge change considering the company only started franchising in 2001 when it ended the year with 303 hotels and just 11 franchised locations.

La Quinta signed 55 new franchise agreements last year, putting the pipeline at 218, down a little after the 81 openings. The brand increased its guest satisfaction in intent to return (up 3.2 percent in year over year) and product quality (up four percent). La Quinta also gained 2.2 percent in market share (RevPAR index), according to Smith Travel Research. The brand also grew internationally with 13 executed contracts in Panama and three new contracts in Mexico. Trivedi said during a media roundtable after the council meeting that the company would be opening an office in South America later this year.

“In a very challenging year, there were a lot of bright spots for La Quinta,” said Goldberg, who also added the company is still cash-flow positive, which allows for good long-term decision-making.

The brand council was created at the end of 2008 and replaced the former advisory council. Last week’s meeting was the fifth and welcomed three new franchise members who were elected by their regional counterparts. To be eligible, franchise members must be in good standing, apply and are then elected for a term of three years. The goal of the council: Enhance revenue, profits and perception of the brand for all properties through an open exchange of ideas used to develop innovative strategies.

“We’re all in the same business—owned and franchised,” said Angelo Lombardi, the chief operating officer who heads the company-owned properties. “How do we make more sense of that and all do a better job? Whether franchised or corporate, we all have the same three primary functions: take care of guests, take care of our properties and drive profit.”

The meeting ran much like a school board, with updates on old business, new initiatives and then an idea forum for brainstorming. Hot-button issues were La Quinta’s returns program and ways to incentivize (or penalize) owners and properties that were excelling (or lacking). Julie Cary, chief marketing officer, said enrollment was up 22 percent, but there was still room for improvement since so much business came from the company’s most loyal customers. Lombardi said three under-performing company properties quickly increased their enrollment results during the month of December once the problem was identified and addressed. Two of the franchise members debated the need and methods for continuing education for owners.

New initiatives—like a revenue management for hire program in testing, a new company intranet for owners and GMs set to debut this spring and the company’s new dynamic pricing rollout debuting to franchised locations this year—were discussed and debated. Cary, with the company’s advertising agency Mullen on hand, showed rough versions of La Quinta’s new TV commercials slated to air on the cable show Fox & Friends. She also announced the radio spots would go national this year. The tagline—“Wake Up On the Bright Side—would not change, but the new campaign was titled “Even Better Than Before” and included more focus on the product with interior images.

Becoming better than before was the reason for the formation of the brand council and the full-day meeting was an example of La Quinta’s open and honest approach to that. “It may not always be a pleasant conversation,” Trivedi said, “but it will always be a productive conversation. The brand council is the forum where we determine the future of the brand.”