Editing Motel (section)

===Market segmentation===
In the 1970s and 1980s, independent motels were losing ground to chains such as [[Motel 6]] and Ramada, existing roadside locations were increasingly bypassed by freeways, and the development of the motel chain led to a blurring of motel and hotel.

While family-owned motels with as few as five rooms could still be found, especially along older highways, these were forced to compete with a proliferation of [[Hotel#Economy and limited service|Economy Limited Service]] chains. ELS hotels typically do not offer cooked food or mixed drinks; they may offer a very limited selection of [[continental breakfast]] foods but have no restaurant, bar, or room service.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sup.org/pages.cgi?isbn=0804778833;item=Excerpt_from_the_Introduction_pages;page=15 |title=Life Behind the Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream |first=Pawan |last=Dhingra |page=15 |year=2012 |access-date=August 15, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130415230918/http://www.sup.org/pages.cgi?isbn=0804778833;item=Excerpt_from_the_Introduction_pages;page=15 |archive-date=April 15, 2013 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]]}}</ref>

[[Journey's End Corporation]] (founded 1978 in [[Belleville, Ontario]]) built two-story hotel buildings with no on-site amenities to compete directly in price with existing motels. Rooms were comparable to a good hotel but there was no pool, restaurant, health club, or conference center. There was no room service<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/11/business/real-estate-a-no-frills-hotel-rises-in-manhattan.html | title=Real Estate; A No-Frills Hotel Rises in Manhattan | author=Shawn G. Kennedy | date=January 11, 1989 | newspaper=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> and generic architectural designs varied little between cities. The chain targeted "budget-minded business travelers looking for something between the full-service luxury hotels and the clean-but-plain roadside inns", but largely drew individual travelers from small towns who traditionally supported small roadside motels.

International chains quickly followed this same pattern. Choice Hotels created [[Comfort Inn]] as an economy limited service brand in 1982. New limited-service brands from existing franchisors provided [[market segmentation]]; by using a different [[trademark]] and [[brand]]ing, major hotel chains could build new limited-service properties near airports and freeways without undermining their existing mid-price brands. Creation of new brands also allowed chains to circumvent the contractual minimum distance protections between individual hoteliers in the same chain. Franchisors placed multiple properties under different brands at the same motorway exit, leading to a decline in revenue for individual franchisees.<ref name="google1"/> An influx of newly concocted brands became a key factor in a boom in new construction which ultimately led to [[market saturation]].

By the 1990s, Motel 6 and [[Super 8 Worldwide|Super 8]] were built with inside corridors (so were nominally hotels) while other former motel brands (including Ramada and Holiday Inn) had become mid-price hotel chains. Some individual franchisees built new hotels with modern amenities alongside or in place of their former Holiday Inn motels; by 2010 a mid-range hotel with an indoor pool was the standard required to remain a Holiday Inn.