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Preferred Hotel Group™, which provides branding, distribution, sales, marketing and technology support for a global portfolio of best-in-class, independent hotels and resorts, recently selected LRA Worldwide, Inc. as its partner for a comprehensive quality assurance (QA) program. LRA will provide QA evaluations worldwide for four Preferred Hotel Group brands - Preferred Hotels® & Resorts, Preferred Boutique™, Summit Hotels & Resorts™ and Sterling Hotels™.
To expand upon Preferred Hotel Group’s ”Standards of Excellence” program, LRA and Preferred Hotel Group have jointly developed a flexible evaluation framework that will ensure each property’s commitment to excellence, while allowing for the independent, unique guest experience that consumers have come to expect from Preferred Hotel Group members. In all, the program has the potential to reach more than 600 properties in 70 countries.
“LRA Worldwide was a logical choice for a program this ambitious,” said Rob Cornell, Senior Vice President, Development for Preferred Hotel Group. “LRA’s global footprint, expertise in the design and development of customized QA programs and hands-on approach to working with each of our owners made this an easy decision. Plus, we felt it was very important that our QA evaluations be handled by a 3rd-party with a wealth of institutional knowledge on industry standards and practices across multiple brands and service levels.”
LRA’s proprietary web-based quality management technology, TouchPoint Manager™ (TpM), will house all of the standards and QA reports. This will provide Preferred Hotel Group participants at the corporate and property level with one central location online to access program standards, robust reporting and interactive action plans the hotels can use to improve their service delivery and consistency.
“We’ve designed the Preferred Hotel Group program specifically and TouchPoint Manager™ in general with one concept in mind – make it easy to participate,” explained John Roberto, LRA’s Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Quality Assurance. “Our partners at Preferred headquarters emphasized that while the standards and expectations needed to be rigorous, the program administration and reporting needed to be turnkey, painless and actionable.”
In addition to its work with Preferred Hotel Group, LRA provides performance measurement services to seven of the top ten hotel companies in the world. In all, LRA’s Quality Assurance practice conducts nearly 13,000 site visits and evaluations each year, either as a stand-alone offering or as an integrated part of an overall Customer Experience Management project. In addition to its work with other lodging clients such as Hyatt Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, Sol Meliá Hotels & Resorts, Sofitel Luxury Hotels, Pestana Hotels and Starwood Hotels & Resorts, LRA provides QA services to industry leaders in Sports, Conference Centers, Timeshare, Gaming, Homebuilding, Retail and Travel.
About Preferred Hotel Group™
Celebrating over 40 years of excellence, Preferred Hotel Group™ (PreferredHotelGroup.com) is a leading provider of business solutions for independently owned and operated hotels and resorts around the world. Services include sales, marketing, technology, distribution, and quality assurance. Comprised of more than 800 best-in-class hotels in over 70 countries, Preferred Hotel Group encompasses five distinct brands: Preferred Hotels® & Resorts, Preferred Boutique™, Summit Hotels & Resorts™, Sterling Hotels™ and Historic Hotels of Americas®. Preferred Hotel Group also offers I Prefer™ (iprefer.com), an exclusive global guest benefits program, as well as Preferred Golf™, a membership program with entrée to the world’s most spectacular luxury golf resorts (preferredgolf.com).
In Fall 2007, the company entered the luxury real estate market with the launch of Preferred Residences™ (PreferredResidences.com) – a membership and exchange program for luxury shared ownership resorts that provide an exceptional level of service and amenities. Preferred Residences are held to exacting standards derived from the same Preferred Global Standards of Excellence™ on which the company has built its 41-year heritage in the hospitality industry.
About LRA Worldwide, Inc.
LRA Worldwide (lraworldwide.com) is a leading research and consulting company in the emerging discipline of Customer Experience Management (CEM). We work with our clients to help them design and deliver consistently exceptional customer experiences in order to drive customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy, and company growth and profitability.
In LRA’s 25-year history, we have grown from a provider of customized quality assurance evaluation programs for the hospitality industry, to a leading CEM consulting company offering a variety of client solutions. The evolution has been driven by our clients asking us one question – "How do we get better?" In response, we have built a range of performance measurement, research, training and consulting solutions to help them do so. Today, we are a growing company operating in more than 120 countries throughout the world, helping clients such as Starwood Hotels & Resorts, the National Basketball Association, the PGA TOUR and Ritz-Carlton Clubs deliver exceptional customer experiences. Every touch. Every time.
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