Choice Hotels

Choice Hotels was founded in 1939 as Quality Courts United, a nonprofit referral chain of independent motels. Under the Bainum family, who took control in 1980, the company transformed into one of the pioneers of market segmentation in hospitality, creating distinct brands for distinct travellers.

The birth of Comfort Inn

In 1981, the company introduced Quality Royale, Quality Inn and Comfort as three separate brands aimed at different price points. The first Comfort Inn opened that year in Atlanta, in a converted motel near Georgia Tech. Comfort would go on to become the company's flagship brand, expanding to 860 locations across the United States by the end of the decade and later internationally under CEO Robert Hazard.

A history of firsts

Choice Hotels was an early innovator in the hotel industry, introducing features that are now considered standard. Its history of firsts includes:

• Sunburst, the industry's first global marketing and reservations system
• The first mandatory programme of non-smoking hotel rooms worldwide
• Early all-suite and senior-friendly room formats
• choiceEDGE, a cloud based reservations platform launched in 2018

A franchisee-led model

Choice Hotels operates as a franchisor rather than an owner-operator, working closely with thousands of independent hotel owners. The Choice Hotels Owners Council, established in 1967, gives franchisees a direct channel of communication with corporate management.

A global franchise network today

Renamed Choice Hotels International in 1990, the company now operates more than twenty brands, including Comfort, Quality, Clarion, Radisson and Country Inn & Suites, spanning thousands of franchised properties around the world.

Culture

• Franchise entrepreneurship: built around independent hotel owners rather than company owned properties
• Segmentation pioneers: creating distinct brands for distinct traveller needs since the 1980s
• Innovation first: early adopters of non-smoking rooms, telephone reservations and cloud based systems
• Long tenure culture: senior leaders often spend decades with the company

Human Resources

Choice Hotels operates with a relatively lean corporate team supporting a vast franchise network, giving employees broad exposure across brand management, technology and hospitality operations.

• Opportunities across a portfolio of more than twenty brands
• A culture that values long-term careers, exemplified by leadership tenures spanning decades
• Exposure to both corporate strategy and the franchise side of hospitality