Travel Inn: everything you want for a good night's sleep – 100 per cent satisfaction guarantee or your money back

Abstract

In the UK, following a period of exponential growth, the budget hotel market is maturing. In the classic product/service lifecycle model, this phase of development in a market is usually associated with strategies which engender strong brand loyalty; which strengthen and underpin market share; which develop competitive relative positioning and which serve to emphasize, via differentiation, unique brand benefits or propositions. This paper considers the strategies of Whitbread Travel Inn who, as the market leader, launched their 100 per cent Good Night satisfaction guarantee (or your money back) across the brand in 2001. To begin with a review of the budget hotel market is undertaken. This is followed by an analysis of the achievements of the guarantee over its first 18 months of operation, and consideration of the training approach that inculcated a new mind‐set within the organization. The paper concludes by reiterating the successes achieved and celebrates an award winning performance.

Citation

McCaskey, D. and Symes, S. (2004), "Travel Inn: everything you want for a good night's sleep – 100 per cent satisfaction guarantee or your money back", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 166-174. https://doi.org/10.1108/09596110410531159