Driving the US
I spent over two weeks driving across the US hitting eleven western states. I loved every minute of my trip and I’m eager to repeat the whole thing all over again. I was exploring other cities and visiting family at the same time.
As I was driving, I was thinking about how road trips have changed over the decades and become infinitely easier. Speeds are much higher than ever before, which takes much of the boredom out of the drive. Because our cell phones and tablets are so capable, everything we need in route is right at our fingertips and there were no areas where cell phone coverage didn’t exist, even on Midwestern backroads. You can now look ahead for restaurants, gas, and any other services where in the past, outside of a map, it was a guess.
Meanwhile, services have changed to meet the needs of a fast moving traveler. Truck Stops are now “Travel Plazas” and contain just about everything a serious road warrior needs, including fast food in one form or another. It’s one stop and off you go to the next. Technology always flows in the direction of convenience and it’s shaping the rural landscape if we’re paying attention.
I remember a stretch of I90 on the eastern edge of Montana, into Wyoming where for years there was a large sign saying, “Next Services 79 Miles.” Think about that for a moment if you run out of gas or break down. It was a nudge that you’re car better be in decent shape to cross that 79 miles.
When I drove out west for the first time, you needed paper maps and hotel guides. Mobile produced a regional hotel guide that you’d buy and use to look up available places to stay. You’d go to a pay phone and call the hotel at great expense compared to today. Some had 800 numbers, but most didn’t. You had to guess which hotels may have rooms, so I’d often make hotel reservations long before the drive, and pace myself according to hotel destinations rather than drive until I was tired. Now travelers make their overnight destination plans in route using Expedia, Kayak, Hotels.com, or any of the other travel services. Hotels can find themselves completely booked by 3 PM check-in time.
Often the online hotel ratings are optimistic at best, and I have a hard time believing they are real after arriving at some of these highly-rated dumps. I’ve been puzzling over that since I returned. You’d think that with the ability to quickly shop online, hotels would up their standards and work harder to win your business. Some have! Yet, too often, I discovered hotels that had high ratings but were very run down and I couldn’t imagine how they were managed that badly in the first place. I got the distinct impression that they were driven purely by profits without any concern about traveler experience or brand value.
These hotels badly damaged their own brand image and left a bad experience associated with their name. I’d make it a requirement that management eat their own dog food by staying in these crappy places until they get the message. There are no excuses at all for such shoddy brands. Day’s Inn was consistently terrible and in some cases the only choice available.
One Red Lion in particular looked like it was beyond a remodel, and I couldn’t help but think of the horrible management team who made the decisions to let that property disintegrate to that level. Management hasn’t done a thing to fix the property. I couldn’t imagine a hotel allowing that look to be a part of their brand. It was appalling! I remember the Red Lion years ago at Sea-Tac airport and what a magnificent hotel that was when it opened. This was the equivalent to a well-used dumpster if you compared the two. I kept wondering how management thought of the place and what excuses they must have made, and are still making today. What I suspect was that it was entirely about improving the numbers regardless of how guests viewed the property.
I can’t imagine a great CEO walking into that place and not feeling a sense of alarm over what they have done to the brand. If they can’t make it financially, they should sell the place or tear it down rather than continue to hurt the very brand they claim to care about. I’ll never again think of the Red Lion brand as I once did. It will forever be suspect as just another dump of a hotel.
What I noticed at these badly managed hotels, is that it would take so little effort to sustain them as decent places. One Days Inn in Billings had hotel staff that didn’t even turn around to acknowledge me on check-out. They just asked if I was checking out and ignored me without looking up and asking about my stay. The probably already know what I’d say. Staff quality at some was about as bad as it gets, as if they hired just anyone who applied. I’m convinced management didn’t care one bit about customer experience. They were playing the numbers.
There was one chain that did an outstanding job and that was Holiday Inn Express. At every hotel, they seemed to be doing their very best to make it the best place possible for the overnight pass-through traveler. I was impressed by the consistency, the genuinely well trained staff, and the commitment to do all that was necessary in the price range of the road warrior to keep them coming back again and again. It’s no wonder they were consistently the fastest hotels to be completely booked on my drive. Bravo Holiday Inn Express!
It would take very little to go from terrible to extraordinary if someone cared more about customer experience and less about squeezing that last buck like your life depended on it. I know that from now on, I’ll go out of my way to avoid another Days Inn or Red Lion experience. Meanwhile, I will go back to Holiday Inn on my next road trip.