Choice Looks To Ascend With Joyce

Choice Hotels International announced some news at its annual convention earlier this month that flew a bit under the radar.

The lead story, of course, was the introduction of new president and future CEO Steve Joyce to the assembled membership. But the story that hasn’t gotten much play is the rebranding, for lack of a better word, of Choice’s upscale Clarion Collection. The membership consortium of upscale classic and boutique properties is being seperated from the mainstream Clarion brand with its own name: Ascend Collection. 

With the new name and that tony-looking logo, Choice hopes to give its Ascend properties more cachet and higher RevPAR. Ascend properties will be designated either "historic," "boutique" or "unique," with classification definitions to be announced this summer. Choice is emphasizing new terminology for Ascend, dropping the words "brand" and "franchisees" in favor of "affiliation program" and "members." It’s largely semantics, of course, but it does sound more impressive.

But back to the convention’s big story. Joyce, who left an executive vice president role at Marriott International, played along in a videotaped skit that saw him replace a fake "I (heart) Marriott" tattoo with a fake "I (heart) Choice" tattoo. It was kind of a funny skit, especially given that it followed standup "comedy" by the barely endurable Frank Caliendo.

I had a nice chat with Joyce during some downtime at the convention, available as a downloadable podcast. Joyce had literally been on the job for less than a week, so he obviously didn’t have much earthshattering news to share, but he did have a lot to say about Choice’s individual brands and his goals for the company. He also talked at some length about admiring Choice from afar, during his time as an executive at nearby Marriott International. And lest anyone think these podcasts are rehearsed in advance, listen for my last question, when I ask Joyce, "Finish this sentence: Steve Joyce will be a success as Choice CEO if …" I don’t think I’ve ever had someone so caught off-guard by a question—I thought he was going to fall out of his chair laughing.

Notably, I managed to refrain from making a Choice-Joyce joke during the interview.

As long as we’re on the topic of Joyce … I stumbled upon this blog post, worth checking out if you care what your industry colleagues make, which is most of you. Footnoted, the corporate watchdog blog (watchblog?), examines Joyce’s contract and finds that Choice gave him a major raise worth US$1.3 million in stock incentives before he even officially assumed his role at the company on May 1. Not bad.