Originally Posted by
Low Roller
OK - I'll say it...I like chain hotels. I like consistency and knowing what I'm going to get.
You're not alone in that. I have little interest in the "aspirational" properties that are always being pushed. I hated my one stay at a very nice B&B -- didn't like the proximity of strangers or the forced-extroversion of shared breakfast. Most of my stays are one-night, work- or leisure-related, often alone but occasionally with spouse or a road-trip friend. I focus on Honors properties and secondarily IHG Holiday Inn Expresses (which are much more consistent than Holiday Inns). I like knowing exactly what I am getting at the Hampton or Hilton Garden Inn, or the occasional Doubletree, and the Diamond status at the latter two has saved me lots of money on breakfasts over the years. You see, I **like** hotel rooms, if I were alone in the world, I'd probably look into living in a Hampton Inn
Originally Posted by
dulciusexasperis
Many here will probably not be old enough to remember back to the beginning of Holiday Inns. They arose from a niche in the market that someone saw as an alternative to the then ubiquitous Mom and Pop Motels where the quality varied a great deal. The basic premise of Holiday Inn was that from the East to West coast of N. America, if you stayed in a Holiday Inn anywhere, the room would be nearly identical to a room in every other Holiday Inn. In other words, you were assured of a certain level of quality and ammenities....
Fun fact: the original Holiday Inns also all had a tie-in with the Gulf Oil Company with the arrangement that a Gulf gas station would be on or adjacent the property. This was a HUGE reason for their success (along with the standardization and minimum expected quality that was a godsend to parents traveling with children) -- not because of the gas station itself, but because you could charge your room at the Holiday Inn to your Gulf Oil credit card. And in the 1960s, pre-Visa/MC, this allowed families to take vacations that they could pay off over the next several months.