Best Western changing name, logos

After 22 years with its iconic blue and yellow logo adorned with a red crown, Phoenix-based Best Western International introduced new logos and a new name Tuesday at its annual convention.

The company with 4,100 worldwide properties is changing its name to Best Western Hotels & Resorts, and property owners will vote next month on using a new, more modern blue-globe logo that identifies the company simply as “BW.”

“You see ‘O’ for OpenTable and ‘F’ for Facebook,” President/CEO David Kong said. “We wanted to start introducing ‘BW’ as the ligature for Best Western.”

The company established in 1946 has been using the same blue, yellow and red logo since 1993. Now it proposes different logos to distinguish its various properties. The move is an outgrowth of the 2011 effort to differentiate its “Plus” and “Premier” properties.

The new logos include an “energized cranberry” colored diamond for the Plus properties and a maroon oval with “BWP” for Premier properties.

“Things have changed dramatically in those 22 years,” Kong said. “The quality of our product has changed dramatically.”

In the past decade, Best Western has shed about 1,200 properties that did not meet the company standards, and that program is ongoing, Kong said.

In addition, about $2 billion is being spent on North American properties in a five-year upgrade program that began in 2012, with an average $800,000 being spent per property.

The sign changes to the new logos alone will cost another $20,000 to $80,000 at each hotel he said, representing about a $200 million project.

The company not only wanted new logos to further distinguish the seven Best Western brands from one another, but something simpler and smaller to better fit on smartphone and tablet screens that increasingly drive traffic to lodging websites.

The company’s seven brands are: Best Western, Best Western Plus, Best Western Plus Executive Residency, Best Western Premier, Vīb, BW Premier Collection and GLō, a new concept the company plans to offer for new construction projects.

The company also is introducing a new service promise: “Let us know if you are not satisfied. We will make it right.”

Hotel owners must vote on the logo changes and service promise in October and November, and they will be implemented next year if approved. The governing rules for the hotels in the collective vary between North American and abroad.

The company has about 1,050 employees at two facilities in metro Phoenix, the Biltmore-area headquarters and an operations center near Loop 101 and West Beardsley Road.

Company officials revealed the new branding to about 600 hotel owners ahead of the convention and introduced it to the remaining owners of the 2,100 North American properties Tuesday, Kong said.

He said the unveiling was a big moment because so much work had been put into the redesign.

“Changing to a new logo as you can imagine is a daunting challenge,” he said. “People don’t like to part with what is familiar. I expect there will be some customers who say 'Why did you do it,' or 'I don’t like it.'”

He said testing of the new logos shows customers warm up to the new images.

GLō properties will be boutique-style properties with contemporary designs targeted at mid-scale markets, Kong said.

“We expect that because the finishing is so hip and different, we will have a lot of selfie moments in these hotels,” Kong said. “They have unusual pieces of furniture, vibrant colors.”

He expects the properties to draw an average rate of $90 a night.

The boutique brand is Vīb for big markets such as New York City , he said. "We launched Vīb last year and it has been an instant success.”

GLō hotels will be approved in cities such as Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, he said.

“We saw the products in the mid-scale market tend to be cookie-cutter products,” he said. “We basically uncovered this huge untapped opportunity."

Travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt with Atmosphere Research Group in San Francisco said Best Western had the right idea by making property improvements before the rebranding, but he saw problems with the new logos.

“It is a radical departure from Best Western’s familiar block type and blue-and-gold look,” he said. “It is definitely a more contemporary look and feel to the typeface.”

But he said the use of different colors and fonts between property types might confuse travelers.

“They’ve got this dog’s breakfast of look and feel,” he said. “It is messy and inconsistent. I’m concerned it may actually be counterproductive for them.”

Even so, he said the company will be judged by its product.

“Nobody stays at a hotel because of the logo,” Harteveldt said. “It serves as an icon to help people identify something, but what really matters to a guest is what happens when they walk across the threshold.

"Is the quality there, consistency there? Is the professionalism of the staff at the level the guest expects? And is the value at the price they pay at or better than their expectations?”