Howard Johnson Express claims La Quinta flag

Walker, who owns the hotel with his mother, Lanora Livingston, through their company HJ Lodging, said that the change is a better fit for the five-year-old, 61-room hotel.

“A lot of the Howard Johnsons in the system throughout the United States are older properties, conversions from old Holiday Inns or things like that. (There is) not a lot of new product out there in the Howard Johnson system, and La Quinta is kind of an upcoming franchise brand,” Walker said.

The hotel joins area La Quinta properties at 1610 E. Evergreen in Springfield and 1835 W. Highway 76 in Branson at Music City Centre. La Quinta’s publicly traded parent company, La Quinta Corp. (NYSE: LQI), also owns Baymont Inns and Suites, Woodfield Suites and Budgetel. There are more than 550 properties under the La Quinta Corp. name.

Walker’s property is Missouri’s sixth La Quinta Inn. Howard Johnson International recognized the property, which was completed in September 1999, as Howard Johnson Express Inn of the Year in 2000, 2001 and 2003.

“In the past, we’ve had a lot of people say, ‘This is the nicest Howard Johnson we’ve ever stayed at,’ which in our mind we don’t think is very good,” Walker said. “We’d rather they all look very nice. Hopefully, that’s what’s going to happen with La Quinta.”

The switch, which Walker said has cost approximately $180,000 in advertising, operational and franchise fees, does not affect his other properties – Days Inn on West Sunshine and a 92-room hotel under construction at Airport Plaza.

The Airport Plaza property is not yet affiliated with a franchise. “It looks like it’s probably going to be a Baymont Inn and Suites,” Walker said of the three-story property, which will have about 4,000 square feet of meeting space, an indoor pool and spa. He anticipates the hotel opening for business in July or August.

Hotel records

The opening of the hotel at Airport Plaza will bring the total number of hotel and motel rooms in Springfield to about 5,801, according to Tracy Kimberlin, executive director of Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau. The total number of rooms for 2004 was 5,631.

Occupancy rates for 2004 are not yet available, Kimberlin said, but through November, occupancy was 55.4 percent in Springfield. The occupancy rate for 2003 was 53.3 percent.

“Occupied rooms will set a record (for 2004),” Kimberlin said. “That’s room demand. We’ll have over 1.1 million occupied rooms in Springfield (in 2004), which is about a 2 percent increase over last year.”

Kimberlin said that leisure travel in Springfield has grown since 2001.

“Year-to-date (2004), leisure travel is running about 40 percent, business travel about 30 percent, and meetings and conventions about 20 (percent),” he said.

There were 5,600 hotel and motel rooms in Springfield in 2001, with an occupancy rate of 53.5 percent. At that time, Kimberlin said, about 35 percent of travel to Springfield was for business, 35 percent leisure and 20 percent meetings and conventions.

[[In-content Ad]]