Hotel & Motel Management - September 3, 2007 - (Page 28)

28 News H&MM September 3, 2007 | HotelMotel.com www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition Shoney’s Inn returns Continued from page 1 O’Connor said the Settle Inn and GuestHouse International brands fall into the midscalewithout-food-and-beverage segment, and because Shoney’s falls into the economy sector, it will attract more franchisees to the company. Settle Inn has nine properties open and has a revenue per available room of about $43, O’Connor said. GuestHouse has about 70 properties open and has an average daily rate of about $60. “There is no intention at all to put any of these brands into a sector where they don’t ﬁt,” he said. “Shoney’s is a great economy brand. It can compete against anybody in the economy sector.” Ron Marcou, senior v.p. of operations, whose relationship with Shoney’s Inn goes back to 1987, including owning 16 Shoney’s hotels at one time, said there have been plenty of requests to bring back the Shoney’s brand. “I can assure you that there are franchisees out there who expressed a great interest to me about the Shoney’s Inn brand,” said “We have had several inquiries as far as the West Coast about the Shoney’s name and feel that we’ll be pleasantly pleased with the response once we roll it out completely.” O’Connor said the company has ﬁelded quite a few requests from interested parties, primarily in markets in which the brand had previous exposure. “It was a no-brainer to bring it back,” he said. At press time, the company was working to complete the uniform franchise offering circular for Shoney’s Inn. O’Connor said printed material should be ready to distributed by the end of September. There are three Shoney’s Inn properties in operation: Winchester, Va.; Metarie, La.; and Monroe, La. At one time, there were about 100 open, mostly in the southern and southeastern U.S. O’Connor said the company will entertain the possibility of having GuestHouse properties that were once Shoney’s Inn hotels converting back to the Shoney’s ﬂag. “If it makes sense, we’d do it in a minute,” he said. ShoLodge, the brand’s former owner, decided in 2002 to shelve the brand and converted most of the properties to the GuestHouse brand because it was trying to distance itself from the Shoney’s restaurant chain. The hotel and restaurant chains remain unafﬁliated. The Shoney’s restaurant chain was acquired in January by Royal Hospitality Corp. “If they play off of each other, that’s life,” O’Connor said. “We look at it separately. Nothing has been discussed. They’re doing their thing, and we’re steering clear.” O’Connor said the Shoney’s license agreement is being revamped. Working with the American Association of Franchisees & Dealers, Settle Inn & Suites developed a franchise agreement that the group has been recognized as the most franchiseefriendly, not only in the lodging industry, but across all sectors— achieving a near perfect score of 99.3 percent conformity to the AAFD standards. The agreement will contain no liquidated damages. Length of contracts will be for 10-year terms with ﬁve-year renewals. There will be areas of protection, and fees will be between 5 percent and 6 percent of gross revenue, O’Connor said. jhigley@questex.com CIRCLE NO. 119 http://HotelMotel.com http://www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition http://www.pmctrust.com

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Cover Contents Convention Centers Add Bells and Whistles Questex Media acquires Five Star Alliance Perspective At Your Risk Energy Star Update Sales Clinic Transactions Awards Trends & Stats Wireless Networking Northwest Pipeline Coffee Services Ad/Editorial Index Marketplace Classifieds Checking Out

Hotel & Motel Management - September 3, 2007

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