Editing Motel (section)

===Referral chains===
{{main|Referral chain}}
The referral chain in lodging originated in the early 1930s, originally serving to promote cabins and tourist courts. A predecessor of the modern "franchise chain" model, a referral chain was a group of independent motel owners in which each member lodge would voluntarily meet a set of standards and each property would promote the others. Each property would proudly display the group's name alongside its own.

United Motor Courts, founded in 1933 by a group of motel owners in the southwestern U.S., published a guidebook until the early 1950s.<ref name="depression-young">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VBljswTLaIEC&pg=PA317 |title=The Great Depression in America: a cultural encyclopedia |author= William and Nancy Young |pages=315–318 |publisher=Greenwood |date=March 30, 2007 |isbn=978-0313335204}}</ref> A splinter of this now-defunct group, Quality Courts, began as a referral chain in 1941, but was converted to a franchised operation ([[Quality Inn]]) in the 1960s.<ref>Jakle, Sculle, Rogers, p. 162</ref> [[Budget Host]]<ref>Jakle, p. 149</ref> and [[Best Value Inn]] are also referral chains.

[[Best Western]] (1946) was a similar referral chain of independent western U.S. motels. It remains in operation as a member-owned chain, although the modern Best Western operation shares many of the characteristics (such as centralized purchasing and reservation systems) of the later franchise systems.