Editing Motel (section)

===Franchise chains===
[[File:Holiday Inn sign, Ellsworth, Maine LCCN2017710488.tif|thumb|right|upright|Holiday Inn's "Great Sign", used until 1982. Some remain in museums.]]
In 1951, residential developer [[Kemmons Wilson]] returned to [[Memphis, Tennessee]] disillusioned by motels encountered on a family road trip to [[Washington, D.C.]] In each city, rooms varied from well-kept to filthy, few had a swimming pool, no on-site restaurant meant a few miles driving to buy dinner, and (while the room itself was $8 to $10) motor courts charged $2 extra per child, substantially increasing costs of a family vacation.<ref>{{cite news | title=Holiday Inns: Annoyed by the inflexible pricing at America's motels, Kemmons Wilson lodged his business at the intersection where the baby boom met the open road | work=Fortune Small Business | author1=Paul Lukas |author2=Maggie Overfelt | date=April 1, 2003 | url=https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2003/04/01/341009/index.htm}}</ref> He would build his own motel at 4941 Summer Avenue ([[U.S. Route 70 in Tennessee|U.S. 70]]) on the main highway (U.S.&nbsp;70) from Memphis to [[Nashville, Tennessee|Nashville]], adopting a name from a 1942 [[musical film]] ''[[Holiday Inn (film)|Holiday Inn]]'' about a fictional lodge only open on public holidays. Every new [[Holiday Inn]] would have TV, air conditioning, a restaurant, and a pool; all would meet a long list of standards in order to have a guest in Memphis to have the same experience as someone in [[Daytona Beach, Florida]] or [[Akron, Ohio]]. Originally a motel chain, Holiday Inn was first to deploy an [[IBM]]-designed national room reservations system in 1965 and opened its 1000th location by 1968.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/725061/Happy-birthday-Holiday-Inn.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/725061/Happy-birthday-Holiday-Inn.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live | newspaper=The Daily Telegraph | title=Happy birthday Holiday Inn | author=John Simpson | date=September 11, 2002}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

In 1954 a 60-room motor hotel in [[Flagstaff, Arizona]], opened as the first [[Ramada]] ([[Spanish language|Spanish]] for "[[ramada (shelter)|a shaded resting place]]"). The [[Twin Bridges Motor Hotel]], established in 1957 near [[Washington, D.C.]] as a member of Quality Courts, became the first [[Marriott International|Marriott]] in 1959, expanding from motel to hotel in 1962.

For individual motel owners, a franchise chain provided an automated central reservation system and a nationally recognized brand which assured consumers that rooms and amenities met a consistent minimum standard. This came at a cost; franchise fees, marketing fees, reservation fees, and royalty fees were not reduced during times of economic recession, leaving most of the business risk with the franchisee while franchise corporations profited. Some franchise contracts restricted the franchisee's ability to sell the business as a going concern or leave the franchise group without penalty.<ref name="google1">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r_nxcSS1TfUC&pg=PA92  |title=Life Behind the Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream |author=Pawan Dhingra |page=92 |date=April 25, 2012 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=9780804782029 |access-date=August 15, 2012}}</ref>

For the chain, the franchise model allowed a higher level of product standardization and quality control than was possible as a referral chain model while allowing expansion beyond the maximum practical size of a tightly held ownership chain.

In some cases, loosely knit ownership chains (such as [[Travelodge]]) and referral chains (such as Quality Courts, founded in 1939 by seven motel operators as a non-profit referral system) were converted to franchise systems.

Quality Courts (1939) and The Best Western Motels (1946) were both originally referral chains and largely marketed together (as Quality Courts were predominantly east of the Mississippi River) until the 1960s. Both built national supply chain and reservation systems while aggressively removing properties not meeting minimum standards. In 1963, their paths diverged. Quality Courts became [[Quality Inn]],<ref name="AHA"/> abandoning its former co-operative structure to become a for-profit corporation, use shareholder capital to build entirely company-owned locations, and require its members to become franchisees, while Best Western retained its original member-owned status as a [[marketing co-operative]].