Seven Greene King hotels to join Best Western

Best Western has this week signed a partnership with Greene King to bring seven of its unbranded hotels on board. A Choice hotel, Maitrise, in London's Maida Vale, has also been approved to join the sales and marketing consortium.

Christine Jones, brand development director of Best Western, said: "It's an exciting time for the group. We're attracting larger quality hotels, a number of whom are choosing to move to us from other brands."

The deal with Greene King, which already has one hotel with Best Western, in Middlesbrough, comes on the back of a successful growth period for Best Western. The consortium, which comprises 276 independently and individually owned hotels, has seen double-digit revenue growth over five consecutive years.

In the past 12 months, some 42 hotels have been accepted as members and are set to go live. More than 1500 rooms have been approved to join the group in the past four months alone, representing more than 10% of the group's bed stock.

Best Western chief executive Richard Lewis said: "Hotels know they get exceptional return on investment from us at 9.35% of revenue. While the number of member hotels has remained fairly constant, our room stock has risen more than 5% in the past five years. We're attracting consistently higher quality hotels and we all reap the benefit."

Last week's annual British Hotel Guest Survey saw Best Western move into the top five brands category for the first time, after Hilton, Premier Inn, Holiday Inn and Marriott