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Looks to woo development via new prototype and incentive
NATIONAL REPORT - Choice Hotels International is doing all it can to ensure that its Comfort-branded hotels are equipped to be a market leader in the upper-midscale segment. Just how will this be done? Through a new design prototype, coupled with a development incentive for new-construction Comfort Inn and Comfort Suites hotels. To hear it from Anne Smith, VP of brand strategy for Choice Hotels International, "this is not your fathers Oldsmobile."
While the new prototype for Comfort-branded hotels seeks to balance functionality and flexibility (Gensler was enlisted as the master architect and designer), and the development incentive looks to spur more development, the first task was to reevaluate the system. According to David Pepper, SVP of global development for Choice Hotels International, over the last three years, 20 percent of Comfort hotels have been terminated-about 300 hotels.
"They couldn't or wouldn't live up to the standards we were setting," said Smith. "It's made a huge difference in tone and the message being sent to developers and the franchisee community. Current franchisees have been...