In tough times, families tend to huddle together. And while Best Western has weathered the economic downturn as well or better than many other hotel brands, the membership group chose to emphasize its founding principle of members helping members during its annual conference this week in Orlando.

Four members whose roots with Best Western extend back to the 1940s and ‘50s were honored during the brand’s annual conference.

At an opening general session on Monday, chain executives called to the stage a handful of members in attendance whose roots with Best Western date back to 1955 or earlier. Two of the members on stage joined the brand in 1948, just two years after its founding by lodging pioneer M.K. Guertin.

“We are a family that understands how our past connects us and how we depend on each other to shape the future,” President & CEO David Kong told attendees. “Members helping members is an integral part of our culture and a reason for our success for 65 years.”

Kong evoked Apple’s strong culture of innovation as a parallel to Best Western. He believes Best Western’s “culture of caring” to guests, employees and fellow members is what has enabled the brand to remain strong, relevant and successful for more than six decades.

Kong is particularly proud of the early results of the brand’s bold descriptor strategy, which was in planning for a number of years and rolled out this past February. Today, in North America there are 816 Best Western Plus properties and 15 Best Western Premiers to go along with the 1,300 Best Westerns. According to Kong, the Plus properties have so far achieved a 109 RevPAR index in its upper midscale segment. And in the midscale market, traditional Best Westerns have posted a 110 RevPAR index. (Chain officials didn’t disclose performance data for the Premier tier, citing the low sample of properties and the short timeframe since the launch of the descriptor.)

President David Kong says Best Western’s culture of members helping members is a key reason for its success for more than 65 years.

“These numbers go a long way to validate our descriptor strategy,” said Kong. “It also demonstrates the halo effect the Plus and Premier properties have created for the entire system.”

In today’s world, the chain’s credo of members helping members comes mostly from the board of directors and the corporate staff. Throughout the nearly four-hour general session on Monday, Kong and other executives demonstrated tools and other support they provide to help members be more successful and compete more effectively. The discussions yielded several announcements of new programs:

• In what is probably an industry first, Best Western has partnered with the University of Phoenix to provide content for its bwiuniversity.com training website. In addition to a variety of skills and leadership training materials, the site will soon allow Best Western members and their staff to receive online degrees at a discounted price. As Ron Pohl, senior vice president of brand management and member services, pointed out, owners can use the offering as a tool to attract and retain employees.

• While BestWestern.com drives more than half of revenues delivered to member properties, the chain plans to revamp the website in the coming months. Scott Gibson, CIO and senior vice president of distribution and strategic services, explained the planned upgrades to the site: “The site will have a new look, even better navigation and a more streamlined booking process. The new hotel list page will feature any special offers at your hotel. The redesigned room and rates page also features
TripAdvisor ratings and reviews. The customer can read these reviews and responses without ever leaving our website and that increases the chance the customer will book with us.”

• Gibson also detailed a new Rate Level strategy in which the brand intends to collapse the 40 or more rate plans most properties have into six or eight buckets. At a press conference during the convention, Kong said the rate leveling will “give members a more effective rate management tool, which will give them more time to spend with their customers.” In a related move, management plans to poll the members on a plan to expand Best Western Rewards earning capabilities to all rates, except those generated from online travel agencies.

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