Best Western® Hotels & Resorts Takes Major Step In Transforming Distribution Strategy

Company Acquires Hotel Property Management System Company, AutoClerk, Inc.

Phoenix, AZ /PRNewswire/ - Best Western Hotels & Resorts (BWHR) announced today a major step forward in its broad distribution strategy with the acquisition of AutoClerk, Inc. AutoClerk® is a premier hotel property management system (PMS) company that has been in business since 1986. This acquisition marks a major milestone in BWHR's efforts to simplify distribution for its hotels by making technology management, revenue management, customer relationship management, reporting and connectivity simpler and easier.

"This acquisition will enable BWHR to enhance its competencies in an increasingly complex distribution landscape to drive benefits to its hotels with faster and more reliable connectivity," said BWHR President and CEO David Kong. "It will also allow us to implement technology solutions to help our hotels become more effective in servicing its guests, simplify management of rates and inventory and improve management reporting."

BWHR has been on a journey of amazing transformation over the past several years. Recently BWHR was named one of the world's Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company, expanded its portfolio to 16 dynamic brands reaching new guests in every chain scale segment including luxury, and won a record number of industry awards and accolades. A key focus for the company's continued success is ensuring it has a robust, resilient, secure and scalable distribution platform.

A critical component of the platform is the PMS. This partnership with AutoClerk will enable BWHR to drive unique benefits to its hotels.

Current and new AutoClerk customers not associated with BWHR will also benefit from BWHR's planned investments in the system's infrastructure and development resources to improve system performance. In addition, BWHR has plans to provide connectivity solutions and integration capabilities to AutoClerk's customers regardless of their brand affiliation.

Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) Interim President and CEO Rachel Humphrey stated, "The products and solutions offered by AutoClerk, a preferred PMS technology that AAHOA members can access for an affordable price, will only grow stronger with BWHR's backing. We are pleased to continue our partnership with a company that has a proven track record and technical expertise that AAHOA members can trust."

For more information on BWHR, please visit BestWestern.com.

For more information on AutoClerk's server- and cloud-based property management systems or to request a free demo, please visit AutoClerk.com.

About Best Western® Hotels & Resorts:
Best Western Hotels & Resorts headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, is a privately held hotel brand with a global network of approximately 4,500 hotels in nearly 100 countries and territories worldwide^‡. Best Western offers 16 hotel brands to suit the needs of developers and guests in every market. Best Western branded hotels include Best Western®, Best Western Plus®, Best Western Premier®, Executive Residency by Best Western®, Vīb®, GLō®, Aiden®, Sadie®, BW Premier Collection®, and BW Signature Collection®. Through recent acquisition, Best Western now also offers WorldHotels® Luxury, WorldHotels Elite and WorldHotels Distinctive brands. Completing its portfolio, Best Western offers SureStay®, SureStay Plus®, and SureStay Collection® franchises^**. Now celebrating more than 70 years of hospitality, Best Western provides its hoteliers with global operational, sales and marketing support, and award-winning online and mobile booking capabilities. Best Western continues to set industry records regarding awards and accolades, including 66 percent of the brand's North American hotels earning a TripAdvisor® Certificate of Excellence award in 2018, Business Travel News® ranking Best Western Plus and Best Western number one in upper-midscale and midscale hotel brands respectively for two consecutive years, and Fast Company honoring Best Western Hotels & Resorts with a spot in the Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in the Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality category. Best Western has also won 10 consecutive AAA®/CAA® Lodging Partner of the Year awards, recognizing the brand's commitment to providing exceptional service and great value to AAA/CAA's nearly 60 million members in the U.S. and Canada. Best Western-branded hotels were top ranked in breakfast (food and beverage category) by J.D. Power's 2018 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study – ranking first for midscale; and second for upper midscale. Nearly 40 million travelers are members of the brand's award-winning loyalty program Best Western Rewards®, one of the few programs in which members earn points that never expire and can be redeemed at any Best Western-branded hotel worldwide. Best Western's partnerships with AAA/CAA and Google® Street View provide travelers with exciting ways to interact with the brand. Through its partnership with Google Street View, Best Western is the first major company of its size and scale to launch a virtual reality experience for customers, setting a new industry standard and reinventing how guests view hotels.

^‡ Numbers are approximate, may fluctuate, and include hotels currently in the development pipeline.

^**All Best Western and SureStay branded hotels are independently owned and operated.

About AutoClerk, Inc.
AutoClerk has been building mission-critical software for the hospitality industry since 1986. Serving both independent and major hotel brands in North America —including Best Western Hotels & Resorts and RLH Corporation— building robust, dependable and intuitive property management systems (PMS) capable of interfacing with over 50 hospitality technology platforms, including eight central reservation systems.

AutoClerk has pioneered a variety of hospitality technologies. The 2003 launch of ResOnTheWeb™ was one of the world's first fully integrated PMS web-booking engines, and the company's pure-cloud PMS technology is simplicity itself, requiring only a device with a browser and Internet connection. AutoClerk was an early PMS adopter of credit card tokenization and EMV (chip) technologies. Pushing tokenization to a logical extreme, AutoClerk's cloud PMS data center is one of the very few PMS data centers that does not store, process or transmit sensitive cardholder data.

Based in Northern California, AutoClerk is independently operated and its loyal customer base is supported 24/7 by an in-house dedicated staff, all with hands-on professional experience in the hospitality industry. For more information, visit www.autoclerk.com.