At the end of the day the key to understanding impact is the word relationship. You have to have a r

While each franchisor has a different policy for protecting franchisees from oversaturated markets commonly known as impact policies both franchisors and franchisees stress communication and relationship building as key components to ensure buy travelocity gnome proper protection.
No one likes seeing a hotel coming into their market, said Tim Shuy, VP of franchise management and owner relations buy travelocity gnome for Choice Hotels International, which recently worked with the Choice Hotels Owners Council and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association to alter its impact policy . Really it comes down to an education process. Once you look into it the vast majority of objections, (hoteliers) kind of calm down. But clearly it s an emotional situation.
The problem you have with the impact issues is that franchisees and franchisors are always at complete opposite sides of the issue, said Steve Belmonte, former CEO of Ramada Inns and now founder, president and CEO of Hospitality Solutions. The typical owner will scream impact even if it s an application for a hotel in a completely different market; even if it s 32 exits away, the vast majority will scream impact.
Impact policies often prove to be a Catch-22. While both franchisees and franchisors understand brand growth is important to driving demand, when a second, third or fourth property of the same brand enters a market, buy travelocity gnome it can take years before that supply is absorbed.
If that new property impacts occupancy by three to four occupancy points and the original hotel is running 55% to 60% occupancy in a fairly buy travelocity gnome soft market, that could well mean the difference between holding on and going under, Belmonte said. If you re running 55% and lose three to four occupancy points due to impact, you may not be able to hold on.
Alternatively, franchisees must respect franchisors desire to grow the brands, said Mark Crisci, recently named co-president of K Partners Hospitality Group, which develops, owns and operates hotels in the Southern and Western regions of the U.S.
At the end of the day the key to understanding impact is the word relationship. You have to have a relationship with these brands, he said. It s without a doubt a two-way street. The brands we have relationships with treat us well; they really wouldn t knowingly do anything to impact us. And, let s say they do make a decision, and it does make an impact we d say, look, it did impact us, is there a way to make it right?
Although franchisors each approach impact differently some choosing to study impact buy travelocity gnome on a case-by-case basis and some choosing to negotiate protected areas in advance all understand its potential effect.
Impact is an issue we take seriously and often deny new opportunities because buy travelocity gnome of it. Most owners do not see this part of our application process because it is done by the team prior to receiving an application, said Bill Fortier, senior buy travelocity gnome VP of development buy travelocity gnome for Hilton Worldwide in the Americas region. Applications that raise impact issues buy travelocity gnome are reviewed by the committee, and the committee will approve or deny based on this and other information and analysis.
Similarly, at Choice the impact evaluation process begins at the time an application is received from a potential franchisee. Upon receiving an application, the company performs what executives call a desktop study a smaller-scale impact buy travelocity gnome evaluation.
Choice then identifies same-brand properties that may be affected and sends letters to the owners notifying buy travelocity gnome them that an application has been filed to bring a particular brand into that market. Cross brands sister brands owned by the same parent company are notified if they are within 5 miles of the potential site. Same-brand buy travelocity gnome owners within a certain number of miles (depending on the market) are offered the ability to raise an objection.
If a property is in good standing, we offer a third-party list of consultants there are about 12 or 13 on the list that the owner can choose to have conduct an impact study, said Shellome Pinnock, manager of fair franchising for Choice.
If the objection is raised within the allotted number of miles, Choice will pay for the impact study. Outside of the allotted area, the franchisee can still elect to have an impact study conducted; if results come back and it is determined a new hotel will have significant impact, Choice will reimburse the franchisee for the study and deny the application.
We moved from having an impact policy buy travelocity gnome to all areas of protection. In all of our franchise agreements we have a defined area of protection, said Gus Stamoutsos, executive VP of development for Wyndham. Basically it says in their contract that they have a defined area where we re allowed to develop another property in that brand.
We offer a protected buy travelocity gnome area from day one to the end of the 20-year agreement. Within that protected area, the only person who can bring in a hotel of the same brand is that franchisee, said Raj Trivedi, executive VP of franchising and chief development officer with La Quinta. There is no impact study; we keep it very simple because impact studies are nothing but a guess sometimes it s educated and sometimes not.
For both companies, areas of protection are negotiated based on the market because every market has different demographics; the area of impact in New York would be much smaller than the area of impact in rural Idaho, for example.
buy travelocity gnome Belmonte buy travelocity gnome said significant impact could be defined by losing as few as three occupancy points to a competitor. And when he was leading Ramada, he said, the company lost as many impact objections as it won.
Here was the problem: most licensees did not execute their right to object because they assumed it was all some hokey fix and these (consulting) companies were under our thumb, so they never said I want an impact study, he said. The fact is they were reputable third-party consultants with no allegiance.
Number one, there s only a 50% chance that deal will ever get to a franchise committee buy travelocity gnome review. It s just an application. Half of them fall out, lose the deal, can t get the renovations financed, Belmonte said. My advice is: when you get that notice, don t think the world is coming to an end. There is more of a chance that deal won t come to fruition.
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