Just six years ago, Best Western Hotels & Resorts - Best Western International at the time - used a single brand for its entire portfolio. It since has adopted tiers for Best Western brands and launched four new brands. Now, the company is planning a rapid expansion of its new white label franchise model, SureStay Hotel Group.
Best Western began selling the franchise on December 1 last year and signed 30 hotels in the first 45 days, mostly under the SureStay and SureStay Plus brands.
The brand has also secured its first location in Asia, with the signing of SureStay Plus Sukhumvit Soi 2 - a new-build lower-midscale hotel being developed in the heart of Bangkok. The hotel is expected to open in December 2017.
“The signing of SureStay Plus Sukhumvit Soi 2 will lead to a significant roll-out of this white label concept in key business and leisure destinations across Asia,” said Olivier Berrivin, Best Western’s managing director of international operations - Asia.
Best Western senior vice president and COO Ron Pohl
The new Bangkok hotel will have 85 rooms and, as per SureStay Plus brand standards, all guests will be offered complimentary breakfast and in-room Wi-Fi.
There will also be a “business corner” providing a selection of services.
In addition, the hotel’s owners will be provided with a cloud-based PMS and a digital platform. They will also be offered advice on how to manage their online reviews and social media platforms, as well as property-level sales coaching.
“We’ve had a lot of traction early,” said Best Western senior vice president and COO Ron Pohl. “We have a couple hotels open, but we expect to have 100 hotels open by year-end.”
SureStay operates as a separate subsidiary from Best Western, but property owners can use Best Western’s infrastructure and distribution channels. Best Western’s sales team also will represent SureStay properties, said BW chief marketing officer Dorothy Dowling.
“We’re going to be in a lot of long-tail markets that we didn’t have with Best Western,” she said. “We’re going to have more opportunities for them, and they’re going to know that we stand behind that service commitment and the product.”
One of the criteria for owners to franchise with SureStay is a property rating of at least 3.5 on TripAdvisor. “In the buying community, when they buy to that premium economy or lower midscale, they want to be assured that their customer is going to have a good experience,” Dowling said.
As part of the onboarding process, Best Western works with new franchisors for two to three weeks to ensure service will be a continuing priority. Another priority, Pohl said, is that the hotel has comfortable beds, free breakfast, a good shower experience and free Wi-Fi.
Under the SureStay umbrella, there are three brands – SureStay, SureStay Plus, and SureStay Signature Collection.
In development of Best Western’s own brands, Pohl said the company would continue to build its presence in primary and secondary markets. “Certainly BW Premier and Vib are hotel products that are intended for primary and urban markets, which really are what we need from an inventory perspective to attract more business travellers,” Pohl said.
“Premier and Premier Collection continue to be some of our fastest-growing brands aside from Plus. All of those are in primary and secondary markets.”
Best Western will open its first U.S. Vib hotels this year. BW Premier boasts 28 properties in North America and 97 internationally, with a global pipeline of 58 hotels. Premier Collection, BW’s soft brand, has 16 properties in North America, 37 elsewhere in the world and 23 in the works globally.
The company also is nearing the finish line for its brand refresh, introduced in 2015. New signage with the company’s updated logos is on display at almost 1,200 hotels in North America, according to Pohl, and all hotels in the region will have the new signage in place by the end of the year.
Best Western expects updated signs to be in place around the world by the end of 2018.
“Customer feedback is that [the refresh] is doing exactly what we’d hoped,” Pohl said. “It communicates that fresh image of Best Western and ties back to our new products and all of the investments all of our owners have made into their properties.”
The company, too, is revamping its Best Western Rewards programme. Each member now has a digital membership card that provides easy access to his or her membership number, point balance and tier level, as well as member deals and offers.
“We find more and more that [loyalty] translates into the business travel space because virtually every travel buyer today needs loyalty to drive compliance, so it’s certainly part of every conversation,”
Dowling said.