Best Western Becomes First Hotel Chain to Offer New GPS and Online Mapping Service for North America/Caribbean

Easier than ever for guests to find Best Western locations

PHOENIX, May 5 /PRNewswire/ — Best Western announced today that it is the first hotel company to make all of its North American and Caribbean hotel locations available for download to GPS devices from the www.bestwestern.com site, courtesy of leading GPS and online mapping site POIfriend.com.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030627/BESTWESTERNLOGO)

“As the World’s Largest Hotel Chain, we are always on the lookout for tools that help guest navigate our enormous portfolio of properties,” said Karmela Gaffney, managing director of e-commerce and advertising for Best Western. “Our work with POIfriend.com is about saving our guests time and enabling them to connect with our hotels when and where it makes sense.”

Through bestwestern.com and POIfriend.com, users can download an official listing of all North American and Caribbean Best Western hotel locations to the majority of GPS-enabled navigation devices.

“Customers will no longer have to rely solely on the pre-loaded data on their GPS devices,” added Gaffney. “This will place the most current Best Western information at their fingertips.”

Best Western’s official hotel location listing can be downloaded to GPS devices by visiting www.bestwestern.com

ABOUT BEST WESTERN INTERNATIONAL

Best Western International is THE WORLD’S LARGEST HOTEL CHAIN(R), providing marketing, reservations and operational support to over 4,000* independently owned and operated member hotels in 80* countries and territories worldwide. An industry pioneer since 1946, Best Western has grown into an iconic brand that hosts 400,000* worldwide guests each night. Best Western’s diverse property portfolio, its greatest strength, stems from a business model designed to give owners maximum flexibility to address market-specific needs. Equally committed to the business and leisure traveler, Best Western recently embarked on a five-year mission to lead the hotel industry in customer care. Since 2004, Best Western has served as the Official Hotel of NASCAR(R). For more information or to make a reservation, please visit www.bestwestern.com.

*Numbers are approximate and can fluctuate.

ABOUT POIfriend.com

POIfriend.com is the point of interest community that connects people and the places important to them. It is the first site of its kind that lets people find, create, comment, rate, share, and use Point of Interest (POI) information for GPS, maps and driving directions. POIfriend is free to use for all users and works with most portable GPS enabled devices. For a complete listing of compatible devices please visit POIfriend.com’s FAQ at http://www.poifriend.com/faq.php#using04.

    Contact:
    Heather Wright
    Best Western International
    (602) 957-5752
    heather.wright@bestwestern.com

SOURCE Best Western International