Great Franchise Expectations

Hotel Interactive, Inc:

La Quinta recently realized a milestone it has been working toward since it started franchising 10 years ago. Now, slightly more than half of La Quinta’s 808 properties are franchised.

It’s a direction that the company plans to maintain as it pursues its international growth strategy.

President and CEO Wayne Goldberg described the strategy as leveraging the brand, not the balance sheet.

While the company continues to invest in its own hotels – one example being the $50 million it put into its downtown Chicago property – Goldberg told Hotel Interactive it likely would not develop any new hotels. But he also ruled out divesting anything, saying there was no plan to change the number of hotels La Quinta owns and operates.