The SPIN On Americas Best Value Inn
Americas Best Value Inn offers weekly interactive webcasts.
By Adam Kirby, Associate Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 11/1/2007
CLEVELAND, OHIO In an effort to attract unsatisfied hotel franchisees to its burgeoning budget brand, Americas Best Value Inn (ABVI) is offering hoteliers the opportunity to participate in weekly interactive webcasts.The webcasts are known as SPIN—an acronym for Sales Presentation Internet News—and they offer a casual, anonymous way to check out what ABVI has to offer those considering a re-flag. This is no run-of-the-mill video tour, however: Every Wednesday, CEO Roger Bloss makes himself available to a live and unfi ltered question-and-answer session, lending the webcasts an invaluable level of frankness and authority.
Bloss likens SPIN to taking a vehicle for a test drive. “I encourage people to ask me tough questions during the presentation,” Bloss says. When the idea was fi rst pitched to him earlier this year, he was eager to participate. Believing ABVI offers franchisees an unparalleled return on investment, he saw only positives with the webcast concept.
SPIN is the brainchild of Vice President of Development Patrick Mullinix, who admits he was a bit anxious during the fi rst few webcasts. A live and unfi ltered production has the benefi ts of candor and unpredictability, but those can quickly turn sour if things go wrong. “My worst nightmare has always been that some oddball might ask a question that we were not prepared to answer or that might be inappropriate,” Mullinix says. “But so far, we have had some great results and some great questions.”
SPIN grew out of the realization that the development section of the ABVI Web site was experiencing relatively heavy traffi c—about 7,000 hits per month—and Mullinix believed that the brand could better leverage Web technology to sell itself to potential brand members. Initially, Mullinix envisioned a downloadable PowerPoint presentation, or even some sort of streaming video clip, before coming up with the “virtual town hall meeting” setup. Since launching SPIN in August, hits on the brand’s development Web page have more than doubled, he says.
Nearly 700 people participated in the four September webcasts, with about 85% of participants taking the next step—a formal inquiry about possible brand membership opportunities. Many of those leads, Mullinix believes, would not have materialized if not for the informal nature of the webcasts.
Hoteliers who already have a branding agreement with a competitor tend to be hesitant about exploring other brands, Mullinix says. Because the SPIN webcasts do not require participants to give any identifying information in advance, curious individuals can interact with ABVI offi cials guilt-free. “We are giving them the opportunity to look at our brand and our benefi ts, to see if this would be suitable for their property, before they even put their name and phone number out there,” Mullinix says.
The 7-year-old Americas Best Value Inn brand, which claims to be the industry’s fastest growing, is part of Vantage Hospitality Corp. Live webcasts are held at 1 p.m. EST (5 p.m. GMT) every Wednesday. To log on and participate, visit www.americasbestvalueinn.com/spin
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