Preferred Hotel Group™ Pioneers New Quality Assurance Program

CHICAGO, June 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Preferred Hotel Group™ today announced the launch of Integrated Quality Assurance (IQA), an innovative new standard for measuring quality assurance for the hospitality and lodging industry.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110623/NY25283LOGO )

IQA expands the breadth and scope of the company's "Global Standards of Excellence™" by dynamically combining traditional unannounced hotel inspections with customer comments and rankings from a wide range of social media sites. This combination of viewpoints provides hoteliers with a continuous real-time, comprehensive view of guest satisfaction relative to service, experience, and hotel quality.

"Guests are the ultimate arbiter of quality today," said Lindsey Ueberroth, President.  "Preferred Hotel Group is pioneering a new standard in quality assurance measurement."  Ueberroth added that IQA provides hoteliers with a number of powerful reputation management tools that include:

• Compiling ratings and scores from multiple online channels, updated every 24 hours;
• Providing comparisons against five competing hotels;  
• Allowing hotels to react and respond immediately to online comments; and
• Quantifying social commentary.

IQA combines customer comments and rankings from a wide range of social media sites -- such as Trip Advisor, Frequent Flyer, Virtual Tourist, Facebook, and Twitter -- with traditional site inspections. It analyzes and scores comments, providing hoteliers with a more complete view of customer perceptions.  

Powerful analytics highlight key customer satisfaction issues, and display actionable data that allows the hotelier to make meaningful decisions to improve the guest experience.  Results from this social media dashboard will provide Preferred Hotel Group with the necessary data to evaluate and maintain brand quality standards. Please visit www.preferredhotelgroup.com/IQA for more detailed information on IQA.  

About Preferred Hotel Group™

With a global reach of more than 850 best-in-class hotels and resorts in 70 countries, Preferred Hotel Group™ represents six distinctive brands: Preferred Hotels® & Resorts, Preferred Boutique™, Summit Hotels & Resorts™, Sterling Hotels™, Historic Hotels of America® and Preferred Residences™, a membership-based exchange program for luxury shared ownership resorts. Preferred Hotel Group also offers I Prefer™, a complimentary global guest benefit program that provides members with exclusive offers and rewards, as well as Preferred Golf™, a membership-based program that grants access to 100 of the world's most renowned golf resorts. For more information, visit us on the web at www.PreferredHotelGroup.com, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

For high-resolution imagery of our properties, please visit the Preferred Hotel Group Image Library at www.PreferredHotelGroupImages.com

SOURCE Preferred Hotel Group