CLEVELAND — While the big news at BWH Hotel Group’s North American Conference was the introduction of a new extended-stay brand, there were plenty of other highlights shared with the owners, operators and developers in attendance.
Larry Cuculic, who just celebrated his one-year anniversary as president and CEO of Best Western, said the past year has been the absolute best year of his professional career, calling it “freaking awesome.”
He highlighted the fact that the company recently announced that through careful planning and investment that it is returning $15 million to owners. He also pointed out improvements to the BW app, his work on a long-term strategy for the company and the success of the summer ballot initiatives as proof Best Western is moving in the right direction.
While the company has capitalized on the strong pent-up travel that has been filling rooms throughout the summer, Cuculic offered a caution.
“As great as it all seems, we all know the pressures of inflation, global uncertainties and threats of a recession,” he said. “Winter is coming. Yes, winter is coming. And I'm simply not simply referring to snow and cold weather. We need to invest wisely, thoughtfully and prudently. We don't spend to spend and while we carefully manage our personal assets like I know you do, our team is properly staffed to ensure your success.”
The industry’s experience during COVID has set Best Western up to do exactly that, Cuculic said.
“Your hotel teams and our team at Best Western learned through recent challenges and aggressive austerity programs—that through hard work, dedication and diligence we could do more with less,” he said. “Your Best Western team works hard and accepts the responsibility of driving revenue to you and providing industry leading support.”
The company will finish 2022 with more than 2,500 hotels in North America and 4,115 hotels globally.
Technology Focus
BW’s digital brand channels, including its website, have been achieving record numbers, according to Greg Adams, SVP and chief digital officer.
“During the heights of COVID, a time when our industry suffered more than most, we never stopped working to continuously improve. We were able to get back on track much faster than most,” he said. “Currently, we've gone 20 straight months of achieving all-time monthly revenue records. In 2021 we experienced our first $4 million dollar day, ending the year with a total of 33. This year, we grew our number of $4 million days 358 percent with a total of more than 150. We also had our first $5 million day, delivering $5 million or more to our hotels in a single day—34 times so far this year.”
All of this adds up to the company’s best 12 months ever, driving more than $1.4 billion from its branded websites, including Best Western’s best month in history. Adams said the company also has transitioned 99 percent of vital applications running the organization to Amazon Web Services.
“This means when potential guests are ready to book our hotels, we're ready, willing and able,” he said. “They don't have to come back later, or potentially even worse, give up and go to one of our competitors.”
In 2021, for every dollar spent from the technology budget, BW hotels received more than $49 in net revenue. This year, return on technology spend is $53.25, a 6.4 percent improvement.
The next technology goal is one of the most challenging and impactful initiatives Best Western has ever pursued, according to Adams.
“To achieve success in the future, we must focus our attention on dramatically improving our abilities to personalize across all phases of the guest journey and just as importantly, being able to scale personalization through automation, increasing our opportunities to drive revenues while reducing operational costs,” he said. “This will involve every step along the guests’ journey from inspiration and research to booking, prearrival to check-in, the property experience during each guest day. And finally, the checkout, review and post-stay experiences.”
This will require transforming Best Western’s processes, technologies and people, according to Adams, as well as requiring that it has the right technology foundation. That includes common tools that can support unifying the organization at the corporate level as well as on property.
Culture Update
Best Western also introduced a new service culture workshop called Because We Care. Building on the Since I care initiative that was introduced 10 years ago and has gone through several iterations. The program will kick off with more than 100 regional training sessions throughout the United States and Canada during the first quarter.
The 8-hour sessions will be free for general managers.
“The goal is that you as the general manager would take these steps back to your property and present it to your staff,” said trainer Tricia Fischenich. “We don't expect you to do an eight-hour program. Absolutely not. We've broken up the program into little bite-size chunks, if you will, that you can do in a 40-minute meeting once a month.”
To help GMs accomplish this goal, Best Western created a “culture workshop in a box” that they will get after their regional training. It includes a facilitator binder with a script for the training, participant guides, kindness cards, problem resolution role-play cards, back-of-house posters and Because We Care branded pens. All materials are in English and Spanish.
“While the concepts of hospitality haven't really changed, especially in our current culture, the guest expectations have and so the way we deliver exceptional guest service to our staff and to our guests has to evolve as well,” Fischenich said. “Our ability to lead the industry in superior customer care, that's exactly what we're working toward here—giving the guests that experience that goes above and beyond that really shows the hospitality that we're known for.”