Unlocking The Power Of Choice

Most Choice brand hotels provide a free continental or full breakfast for guests to enjoy, along with a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee.

At Choice, more than 2,100 associates work hard every day to enhance the Company’s powerful array of brands by delivering exceptional services to franchisees and guests alike and by strengthening the brands with more focused marketing and higher quality standards.

Working in 17 offices worldwide, with responsibilities ranging from sales support and reservations to development and hotel services, these associates face the daily challenges of a dynamic business being transformed by technology.

Stop and consider this: just five years ago, how many people could book hotel reservations over the Internet? How about two or three years ago? In a remarkably short amount of time, individual travelers have opened up a new world of possibilities through the Internet. The result is a literal explosion of e-commerce, as more people take advantage of the new technology.

Choice has been at the forefront of this revolution, creating a pioneer web site in 1995 for booking reservations.

Already this business has grown from less than half a percent of all reservations in 1996 to more than 3 percent in 1999. This spring the company is unveiling a new, improved Internet site that will provide users with a wider range of travel information and options, along with a more streamlined booking capability.

To handle this new capability, Choice invested $1.5 million in new computer systems to carry the higher Internet demand. And the innovation continues.

“The new system’s architecture allows the processors to access memory more directly and thus faster,” explained Gary Thomson, vice president, information systems technologies. “Our worldwide system has been revitalized with increased capacity, faster processing speed and more nimble software to handle the rapidly growing volume as well as accommodate new capabilities in the future.”

9:41 a.m. MST A visitor might mistake the sight for a NASA flight center or NORAD control room, with row after row of workstations staffed by employees speaking into headsets and punching furiously at keyboards, causing their glowing screens to do a colorful dance. Telephone sales agents on duty at Choice’s Phoenix Reservations Call Center engage in nearly simultaneous conversations, handling as many as 20,000 calls per day. Phoenix is the hub of Choice’s North American reservations network. Some 250 agents work at the main call center, at home or at two satellite centers established at nearby Glendale and Scottsdale community colleges. “All of Choice’s advertising, promotions and publicity come to a head when we receive a consumer call,” said Don Brockway, Choice vice president of reservations operations. “This is where our sales agents convert potential interest into room nights; this where the revenue trail begins.”