Best hotel chains
 

From my current OAG, in order from first, second, etc. The best chains according to JD Power & Associates:

Economy- Fairfield Inn, Baymount Inn & Suites, Super 8

Mid-priced w/ limited food- Hampton Inn, LaQuinta.

Mid w/ full food- Courtyard, Holiday Inn Select, Best Western, Holiday Inn.

All Suite- Embassy Suites, Residence Inn, Doubletree Guest Suites.

Upscale: Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton & Wyndham (tied), HI Crown Plaza, Doubletree.

Seems like Marriott hotels come out on top. Now, all they have to do is include all Ritz-Carlton properties in their rewards program!

Where's Starwood!?!?!?!

Maybe sticking with Hyatt isn't so bad after all ...

Also, their groupings seem a bit dubious ... I'm not sure there is much difference in prices between Fairfield Inn, Hampton Inn, and LaQuinta ... and I'd take a Hampton Inn over Fairfield even without earning points at the Hampton!

Also, I don't know what their definition of "full food" is, but I've stayed at a few Courtyards that I definitely would not consider to have anything near "full food" ...

Think they mean limited food= breakfast only, with no full service restaurant on premises.

Think Starwood may now have a "nomenclature" problem. They cross so many market segments that people don't know who they are. Even some astute FT's are sometimes surprised that a member of their luxury collection exixts in a given location. How many nonFT's now about Four Points?

Also, Fairmont, Ritx Carlton, and Four Seasons were left out due to insufficient sample size.

This data was from 16109 business travelers and leisure guests sampled at over 100 chains. Interestingly, 53% rated their stays as "outstanding."

Interestingly, they did not poll me. I never think of myself as particularly demanding, yet I would be very hard pressed to call more than maybe one or possibly two of my stays over the last year as outstanding! Most were quite mediocre and many were downright poor! I genuinely feel that this survey does not tell an accurate story of increasingly declining hotel quality. I do hope it does not give the lodging idustry the wrong idea.

So what's changed, if anything? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I dont know if JD Powers does upper-upscale. They topped out the award ratings with upscale, which has included Marriott and Hyatt.

For the second year in a row, Westin Hotels & Resorts has been named number one in the upper-upscale category of Business Travel News' "2001 Survey of Top Hotel Chains."
www.westin.com and search under the press releases.