Best Western rebrands

BANGKOK  Celebrating its 70th anniversary, next year. Best Western International has embarked on a rebranding exercise that will change its name and logo to Best Western Hotels and Resort.
It ends an era of 30 years under the name Best Western International. Approval for the change in name and logo was made at group’s annual conference held Honolulu earlier this week.


The group will reflag all of its 4,100 properties across 100 countries by the time its 70th anniversary celebrations in 2016.
At the same time, the group announced the launch of its seventh brand Glō, a midscale boutique brand for new build properties.
Print“We looked at the segmentation of boutique hotels and realised GLō would fill a void because of the lack of a boutique product in the broad midscale segment,” said David Kong, president and CEO Best Western Hotels & Resorts. “Developers are expressing interest in a boutique brand for secondary markets with a high density population. With the demand to build a hotel product that is fresh, chic and contemporary, we see tremendous opportunity for GLō to change the development landscape in the midscale segment.”
A GLō new build will cost investors approximately USD65,000 per key to develop, which is based on a contemporary space-saving design.
The room rate in the North American market for a room in a GLō property would be around USD90.
“With the demand we are seeing for this broad-midscale boutique brand, coupled with the lower barrier to entry costs of secondary and suburban markets, we expect GLō development to ramp up very quickly,” added Ron Pohl, SVP brand management.
“A brand like GLō will have lots of interest from our Asian investors and we are confident that it will be as successful as the rest of the other Best Western brands in the region,” said Olivier Berrivin, MD International Operations Asia.
Commenting on the name change, senior VP of marketing and sales Dorothy Dowling said: “We have been international for 30 years; people know this about us. What’s not known is that we have wonderful resort locations here and around the world. They enhance our brand image as well.”
Dowling said the company’s goal is to have 1,000 properties in the United States and Canada and adds the new signage by the end of May 2016.

sourced:ttrweekly.com