A creative sales idea thought up by a Baymont Inns & Suites general manager is the driving force—quite literally—behind a new business-to-business alliance.
Milwaukee-based Baymont Inns & Suites, a leading brand in the mid-market hotel segment, is teaming with the Skip Barber Racing School to become a lodging chain of choice for Skip Barber Racing School instructors, employees, clients and business associates. The Skip Barber Racing School—long regarded as the world's best racing and driving school—trains professional racecar drivers and others wishing to hone their driving skills at five base locations nationwide and auto racetracks around the country.
Kathy Dunn, general manager of the 62-room Baymont Inn & Suites in Plymouth, Wis., came up with the plan as a way to bring business to the hotel when it opens in April 2004. The new Baymont Inn & Suites Plymouth, owned b Jim Pankow and Gary Edler, members of Hospitality Investments, LLC, is located near the Road America racetrack in Elkhart Lake, Wis., one of the base locations the Skip Barber Racing School uses for instruction. When it opens, the Baymont Inn & Suites Plymouth will be one of seven Baymont hotels—all located close to auto racetracks, nearby airports and/or Skip Barber Racing School locations nationwide—that are offering locked-in, discounted room rates for all Skip Barber employees, clients and other associates.
In addition to the new Plymouth hotel, other Baymont Inns & Suites offering locked-in room rates include Savannah, Ga.; Birmingham, Ala.; Ontario, Calif.; Mansfield, Ohio; and at the main airports in Milwaukee and Hartford, Conn., an hour's drive from Skip Barber Racing School corporate headquarters in Lakeville, Conn.
In addition, all Skip Barber employees, clients and associates will receive a discount at any Baymont Inn & Suites hotel nationwide.
"I worked with the Skip Barber people when I was general manager of another hotel," Dunn says. "I thought it might be a good idea not only for the new Baymont in Plymouth, but for others elsewhere near racetracks. So I talked to corporate about it, and they did the rest."
"Kathy introduced me to Skip Barber Racing School, and together we developed the idea of duplicating the agreement at Baymont Inns & Suites beyond the Plymouth hotel," says Paul Heck, national sales director for Baymont Inns & Suites. "From a business point of view, alliances with entities like Skip Barber Racing School are known to boost room-night sales nationally. We know the annual room-night need for Skip Barber associates and customers is huge, so we see this program having incredible potential for incremental sales for many of our hotels."
According to Andrew Torres, manager of consumer marketing for the Skip Barber Racing School, as many as 2,000 Skip Barber instructors, clients and other associates travel annually to various training sites and auto races. "These are multiple-night stays, so the number of room nights they'll need will be into the thousands," Torres says.
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