I got back last week from Anaheim, California, where I helped host our annual Courtyard General Manager’s conference. Seven hundred General Managers from around the world attended. It’s not often that you can get that many people together, but we manage to do it every year and we always have a great time. I look forward to this meeting every year for two primary reasons:

First, it gives me the opportunity to spend time with a group of very seasoned, diverse hospitality leaders from around the globe and hear firsthand what they are doing to meet the needs of our guests. And second, I have the privilege to celebrate the best of the best from our global Courtyard team at our annual awards dinner.

The theme of this year’s meeting was “high def,” short for high definition. It was designed to sharpen our team’s focus on several enhancements we will be making for our guests this year in areas like communications, product and service. These enhancements are not only high tech, but high touch too.

At the conference, General Mangers got to see the new lobby for the first time and it was met with rave reviews. We unveiled our new advertising campaign, “It’s a New Stay™”, the GoCourytard.com site and a terrific service strategy called “Our Refreshing Service.” I spoke to a lot of General Managers during the conference who are really excited to begin these programs at their hotels because they’re committed to providing the highest quality service for their guests.

While we spent a lot of time looking ahead at the year to come, we also took a look back on the past year and honored some of our top achievers. I’ll tell you more about that next time.

I am sure you will see the continued sharp focus in “high def” at Courtyard the next time we are fortunate enough to have you stay with us.

That’s it for now. Thanks for helping me keep Courtyard on the Go.

Brian