Many hotel brands suffer from "You don't know what you're going to get" syndrome. If the brand does not have many critical standards and the owner(s) of the hotel(s) have a lackadaisical attitude and/or lack of funds to make improvements to the hotel, the facility can quickly fall into disrepair. This is not a customer service issue. A hotel guest can experience poor customer service at the most expensive hotels. The issue comes down to curb appeal.
Last summer I stayed at a Best Western in Chester IL. The hotel was super clean and well maintained. Any guest could tell the management staff and owner(s) took pride in offering guests the best experience possible. Two summers before this I stayed at a Best Western in Colorado. The facility looked 50 years old, had out-door entrances, and outdated features such as shag carpeting in the room. From this experience, the Best Western brand is lucky I gave them another try in Chester IL. I'm confident that an average traveler who would stay at the location in Chester IL and then the location I experienced in Colorado would be surprised and disappointed that the two properties were not similar. Its as if the brand played the "bait and switch" trick. Who knows if that customer will stay at Best Western again. If they decided to make a reservation I'm confident the question of "What am I going to get this time?" will enter into their thought process. A hotel will lose the customer experience battle if the guest is already questioning their lodging decision before they even arrive to check in.
I purposely didn't mention the BW location in Colorado. If your travels take you to Colorado. Make sure to ask me about this location. You don't want to stay there
Below is an excerpt of an article from hotel-online.com. For Best Western's sake I hope the the hotel in Colorado I experienced is one of the 300 under-performing properties mentioned.
Best Western Enters the Upper Mid-scale Segment- At long last, Best Western announced the new 100-room Atria Prototype. David Kong, BW president and CEO said, “Best Western’s business strategy is to allow developers to build products that best fit their markets. The Atria Prototype is flexible, functional and extremely cost-effective, so it will succeed in a variety of markets. We expect the first Best Western using Atria Prototype plans to be open in the next year.”
Best Western is the world’s largest chain with 4,200 independently-owned member hotels in 80 countries and territories worldwide. Founded in 1946, BW is host to approximately 400,000 guests each night. For years many members resisted the creation of an upper mid-scale Best Western which could command a higher average daily rate. Now with the BW Atria in the United States and the BW Premier in Europe, Best Western will be able to replace to the 300 under-performing properties whose owners refused to bring them up to minimum standards.
The Atria Prototype has several major features, including:
- Guestrooms designed around a loft concept with a frosted glass half-wall that separates sleeping areas from living areas. Guest bathrooms feature the comforts of home, including stone-topped vanities.
- Colors and building materials that appeal to multiple generations. The neutral color palette mixes textures, patterns and tone-on-tone coloring to create visual interest and a sense of warmth.
- Features for multi-media travelers, including multi-functional bed lighting that created an additional workspace for laptop users.
- Modular design that allows developers to adapt the building to meet a local market’s needs, whether through a coffee shop, sweet shop, bar, or expanded food operation. The Prototype layout features 100 rooms in five stories on a two-acre site.
