68 Business View - July 2015
FRANCHISE
price value option for the frugal traveler.”
For decades, the iconic Motel 6 brand has been the
preferred lodging option for a variety of customers in-
cluding leisure travelers, road trip families, long haul
travelers, and business travelers on a budget. Nowa-
days with all the attention placed on the emergence
and purchasing power of the millennial consumer, Sa-
vas recognized that the iconic brands continue to be
well-positioned to meet the expectations of this group
whose members desire a good price-value offering.
In 1997, Motel 6 began to franchise. At the time, the
company owned locations in many primary markets in
the southwest and along the west coast. And although
it wanted to penetrate the secondary and tertiary
markets, the conclusion was that the chain’s 100-
115 room model would be too big for those smaller
locations. So the strategy was to sign up franchisee
partners who would be willing to go into those smaller
markets with 50-70 room structures. Savas notes that
it was a win-win situation: “It presented a great oppor-
tunity for them, but from our end, it helped us to go
into markets where we had not been before.”
Some of the new franchises were already owned by
operators of independent hotels who converted their
properties into the Motel 6 brand, and some were built
from the ground up, utilizing the company’s success-
ful prototype as a model. The company made sure
that its new partners would be successful, although
simply being a part of the best-known brand in the
economy segment was, in itself, a great benefit. Say
Savas, “Whether it’s a hotel franchise or any type of
franchise, it’s been proven that when people work with
a well-known brand, and they franchise, their degree
