Best Western Is Rebranding as WorldHotels. Here's What Travelers Need to Know

A major hotel brand is making a big bet on a new identity, bringing thousands of hotels and other properties across a hundred countries together under one umbrella. Joining us now is Larry Kukulik, President and CEO of World Hotels. Thank you so much for being here, Larry. It's my pleasure. Yeah, this is so exciting. So first of all, tell us a little bit about this announcement. What can we expect from World Hotels moving forward and why was right now the time to really make this change? So it's not just about a name. This is about an enterprise transformation for us. We're actually launching a new loyalty program. We're launching a new technology platform, website and app, and we have a renewed emphasis on that guest experience. We think that the transformation is important. You asked the why question. Why? Because travelers are making decisions differently today, And we think it's the opportune time to reintroduce our full portfolio of 18 brands to travelers. It's so exciting. I have so many questions to get to here. But first, I want to know how you take this kind of brand that's had such loyalty, such recognition for so long, and keep those loyal customers while also now appealing to people who maybe are more interested in some of these more unique different brands and really keep that balance going of these traditions that you have with these new brands as well. Our tradition are independent hotels that embrace the communities in which they do business. What we found is this is the perfect time for this because that's what the travelers that are loyalists as well as new travelers are looking for, the experience of the locale in which they're traveling to. This isn't about creating something new, it's about celebrating who we already are. We can lean into our heritage and our tradition of, I'll call it, The well-known mid-scale Best Western brand, but at the same time, we now have 18 brands across our portfolio. And as a result, we want to make sure they understand, travelers understand, that we have the hotel for every type of trip occasion. Yeah, I mean, it really seems like you do, bringing together 18 brands, again, across 100 countries. That is a lot of properties you're bringing together there. Tell us a little bit more about the loyalty program, right, because that is having a whole revamp here. So what can customers who maybe are unfamiliar with the loyalty program, as well as those who had a different version of it before, really expect? Yeah, well, we have 70 million loyalists right now. What research told us was that there's this next generation of guests that we need to introduce our portfolio to and grow the loyalty program. We had two loyalty programs. They're being united on January 5th into one, World Hotels Rewards. Points still never expire. The value of our points remain consistent with what they've traditionally been. We're not devaluing anything. But, we want to make sure that it's the most welcoming and easiest loyalty program. Loyalty programs today are too confusing. If you look at the different layers of programs with regard to their statuses, ours is going to be simple, easy to use. It's going to be easy to use, it's going to be easy to redeem, easy to learn about, And, of course, the most welcoming in the world. Yeah, I mean, that point about the confusing, I can definitely attest to having traveled a lot with all these different hotel programs. There is so much confusion and no simplicity, really. So definitely something exciting for people to look forward to. In this kind of crowded market of hotels around the world, you obviously have some other large players, Marriott, IHG, some of these others that do have a robust loyalty program. How do you kind of work to compete with those? And what really sets World Hotels apart now? I think by... It being the most welcoming, simplest, easy to use, and that's what the research showed us was that people want not just to earn points, but they want to be able to use those points. And so using the points to us is tremendously important because it shows that we... We want to recognize them for being a part of the World Hotels family. Yeah, and when it comes to that family, I mean, you have some Best Western properties already there, but then you also have some of these more boutique, smaller, independent hotels. So tell us how you plan to really bring those into the fold and have them have this cohesive brand identity while also keeping what makes them unique still unique. To us, it's about helping travelers discover them. Our new website is content rich. We recognize that guests are searching differently. They're not using, I'll call it, destinations as the deciders. They're asking conversational questions through the use of AI. And so our new platform leverages the content that we have to be the answer to the AI questions. When we created this content, we used artificial intelligence, We researched every one of our 4,000 hotels and then we met with our hotels. We spent over 10,000 hours actually talking to our hotels who know about their communities and really... What will welcome those guests into their neighborhoods? Yeah, I was going to ask about that because so many times now people are not looking for just another destination with a hotel and a pool. They really want to know what experiences can I have, what interesting neighborhoods should I check out. So what are you doing, I mentioned this a little bit, but what are you doing to really bring that to life for people so that they can understand a lot more than just what's happening inside the walls of their hotel? Right. I think that it's important when someone walks through the front doors of a hotel, first they should already have that content. We also put in place a guest management system that have links generally to the local content so when they're there they're welcomed not just in person but they're also welcomed through a messaging system that gives them access to that content but we also encourage our hoteliers to have those conversations and make sure that they're aware of not just what that restaurant might have on its menu but what that What kind of recommendation might be as to that special item that's available on the menu that they recommend? Yeah, it's exciting for customers to be able to go in and kind of get that behind-the-scenes information that they wouldn't have otherwise. Thinking about AI, you mentioned your new website and other technology that you're using. How important is that AI factor going to be moving forward for guests as they book and also as they have their stays there? So I look at AI through three lenses. The first is at our company level and we're of course using AI to make sure that we're being as efficient as possible at the company level. There's the hotel level which has I think the use of AI to make sure that they understand who that guest is who's walking into the front doors and make sure that they know they're going to be welcomed on a personal basis. And then of course for guests it starts when they start researching a trip. The ease to, I'll call it, interact with them through our technology platform, our new dot com and our new app, as well as then during the stay, like I mentioned. So You know, we're being thoughtful with regard to investment in artificial intelligence, though I will tell you that. There is some news out there that people are just investing for the sake of investing. We're making sure there's values with regard to any of our AI investments. It's so important to not just be throwing money at AI and not even knowing what you're doing with it, but really having that strategy behind there. Thinking about all of these changes that you're making with AI and all of these other kind of rebranding changes coming together, how are you really going to be measuring this moving forward to say, all right, this is working, or maybe this is a piece that isn't working and now we'll adjust. What are the real tools that you're going to be using to measure that? So of course we're measuring the performance of our website. And you do that by terms of things like time on site, transition times between kind of They're moving through the site itself and of course ultimately conversion on the site. Thank you very much. With regard to hotel performance, of course, we're looking at Revenue per available room and RevPAR index, which is, of course, how they're performing based upon their competition in their markets. We're looking at the strength of the loyalty program. Are we growing not just the members, but how active are they in the loyalty program? Because I think that's tremendously important. You can develop a website and a loyalty program that are easy to use, but the point is that you want them to come back and use it again and again and again. Such that they recognize if they come to our website and they're a loyalist, they will get the best rate. And we'll make sure we welcome them when they enter the hotel because we know who they are as a valued guest. Yeah, I mean, looking forward, so exciting to think about all of these changes coming together. You mentioned the loyalty program is really relaunching January 5th, I believe. When can customers really see all of these changes? Is it all starting in the beginning of the year? Has some of it started already? And what can they expect overall now from World Hotels moving forward? So we had our annual convention last week. And we announced all of this to our hoteliers and it was enthusiastically greeted. They are very appreciative of us reintroducing our hotels to the world so that travelers understand who they are. The new website launched as I was on stage, which is pretty exciting. We had it executed perfectly. So the new website's up and running. The new app will launch January 5th. We want to make sure that it aligned with a new year, which is what loyalty program members use in terms of measurement of, I'll call it, their performance in the program itself. So that's aligned very well. Well, we have a lot to look forward to. We really appreciate you being here today. Larry Kukulik, President and CEO of World Hotels, thank you so much. Thank you very much.