Park Hospitality, parent company of Park Plaza and Park Inn hotels in North America, today announced an agreement with its Asian brand partner Park Plaza Kemayan, Ltd., to unify many areas of the company—including global reservation and distribution systems. Park Plaza Kemayan is the exclusive master franchisee of Park Plaza and Park Inn hotels in 35 countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
While the two entities will continue to operate within their current management structures, they have agreed to work strategically to align the brand in the areas of reservations, operations, marketing, and employee development. Specific points of agreement include creating unified graphics standards, sales collateral pieces, website booking capabilities, and signage. In addition, they will work together to establish a global corporate rate program and marketing consortia to pool marketing resources worldwide.

The hotels` employees will also benefit from the agreement as both entities have agreed to adopt a specialized training and development initiative called `Park Pride.` The program, which stands for Personal, Responsibility, Integrity, and Dedication to Excellence, works to motivate and engage employees in their work, as well as empower them to deliver the best customer service possible.

For travel agents, this agreement means an easier booking process throughout the world, using one chain code, “PD”, to access Park Inn and Park Plaza locations in Asia, Australia and throughout North America. Also, the inventory for more than 60 Park branded hotels in these regions will be listed in the award-winning `Curtis-C` reservation system which doubles the booking and earning potential for travel agents enrolled in the `Look To Book` program.

Look To Book, the travel industry`s premier patented on-line travel consultant loyalty program, rewards points to travel consultants for every reservation booked and consumed at a Carlson-branded hotel, which includes Park Inn and Park Plaza properties. The points can be redeemed for valuable travel and merchandise awards.

Park Hospitality will also create special travel agent rate available at Park Inns and Park Plaza hotels in Asia, Australia and the United States, enabling agents and their families to experience Park Hospitality first hand.

“After working closely with this partner for more than a year, we have concluded that it is in our collective best interest to come together as a unified brand,” said Jetse Pottinga, executive vice president for Park Hospitality. “Operating on a common reservation and distribution system and using the same standards of operations, graphics and design will continue to move the brand forward along our trajectory of growth and success.”

“We at Park Plaza Kemayan are delighted with our new association with Park Hospitality and its parent Carlson Hospitality Worldwide,” said Simon Wan, managing director and CEO of Park Plaza Kemayan. “The access to `Curtis-C` and the associated marketing programs will build occupancies and return on investment to the hotels that we own and for the owners of the hotels that we manage. These successes will help us in our mission to grow the number of hotels under the Park brands in the Asia-Pacific region.”

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