LQ Management LLC is one of the largest operators of limited-service hotels in the United States, with over 65,000 rooms. Based in Dallas, Texas with 9,000 employees nationwide, La Quinta operates and provides franchise services to more than 620 hotels in 45 states and Canada under La Quinta Inns and La Quinta Inns & Suites brands.

Enjoy consistently clean and comfortable guest rooms and suites with many of the frills you would expect at higher priced hotels, such as free breakfast and refreshing swimming pools, all at some of the most affordable and competitive rates anywhere. And because we value your input and want to keep you coming back, we continually upgrade and refurbish our properties with modern amenities and useful services that you request.

At every La Quinta hotel, you'll find a dedicated staff and comfortable, affordable lodging perfect for business or leisure travel.

At La Quinta we serve busy, practical, hardworking travelers and take care of their business or leisure travel needs. We provide the best hotel rooms, warmest hotel atmosphere and most courteous service in our market segment at every hotel, every night.

At La Quinta, every team member plays a vital role in the success of our organization.

Our team members are part of one of the largest owner-operators of hotels in North America. La Quinta operates more than 400 managed properties comprised mostly of La Quinta Inns and La Quinta Inn & Suites along with a select portfolio of Baymont Inn & Suites.

At La Quinta, we have a culture by which we are never satisfied. It doesn’t matter how well we have done something in the past or how well we may do it today, our goal is to continually improve. Our operating philosophy is very simple:

1. Take care of our employees
2. Take care of our guests
3. Keep the hotels spotlessly clean and well maintained

Everything we do at La Quinta truly revolves around our people, our product and our service.

We work just as hard to create a work environment that’s equally inviting. These are just a few of the benefits available to full-time employees:

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Life insurance

Vision coverage

Disability

Paid vacation

Tuition reimbursement

401(k) plan

Room rate discounts

Whether you’re interested in corporate careers at our headquarters in Dallas, Texas, or in a hotel position at one of our 400 plus managed locations across the nation, La Quinta has a wide range of opportunities for skilled, motivated applicants.

Extreme makeover: hotel edition

La Quinta hopes new look will help growth

DALLAS (March 20, 2007) – La Quinta is betting on a sunburst.

The Irving-based hotel chain's new logo is crucial to its plan to become a bigger player in the North American hotel industry. The sunny symbol is replacing the chain's Southwestern motif as the company works to broaden its appeal outside the Sun Belt.

It's a dramatic shift for a hotel chain whose logos and architecture reflected its San Antonio beginnings. La Quinta's last advertising campaign even riffed on its Spanish-sounding name.

Now LQ Management LLC, which operates the privately held company, is using the logo, an updated look for its hotels and a new ad campaign to bolster its case for expansion.

"We want to be wherever the consumer wants to stay," said Julie Cary, who joined La Quinta as its chief marketing officer last year.

La Quinta plans to nearly double its network of 586 hotels by 2011, focusing on Canada, the Northeast, Florida, California, the Northwest and the mid-Atlantic. Later this year, it will open its first property in Mexico.

To do that, it plans to add 90 properties this year. Last year, it added 85. The company has operations in 45 states, mostly in the South and Southeast.

The company has spent the last six years trying to change that.


Twice the size

La Quinta has nearly doubled in size since it launched a franchising program in 2001. Franchisers own about 40 percent of La Quinta locations, a figure that's expected to rise to 75 percent by 2011.

It has already created a stronger foothold in the Midwest – in 2004, it bought 185 hotels under the Baymont Inns & Suites, Woodfield Suites and Budgetel brands. It converted 65 of the properties and then sold the Baymont brand and franchise system to focus on its La Quinta brand.

A year ago, La Quinta was bought out by private equity firm the Blackstone Group, whose affiliates also own Extended Stay America and LXR Luxury Resorts & Hotels.

Blackstone has helped fund La Quinta's expansion, which comes at a time when demand is strong for hotels in the limited-service category, which means they don't have a full-service restaurant on site.

Revenue per available room in La Quinta's hotel segment grew 9.3 percent in 2006, second only to the luxury market, according to Smith Travel Research.

Al Calhoun, a managing director for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, said La Quinta is big enough for consumers to recognize the name but small enough to claim an advantage in attracting franchise partners.

"They have available markets to go into," Mr. Calhoun said. "Most of the other brands are already out there."

And investors are plenty. A recent survey by Jones Lang LaSalle showed that 41 percent of U.S. investors in limited-service properties such as La Quinta planned to buy more hotels in the first part of 2007. Furthermore, there are four buyers for every seller, reflecting strong confidence in the market.

Room revenues still haven't recovered to the record highs of 2000, but investor sentiment is positive during the short and long term, the survey said.


Stronger logo

Greg Crown, a hotel industry analyst for PKF Consulting's Dallas office, says the new motif is critical to La Quinta's expansion outside of the Southwest.

He pointed out that the company's competitors, such as Hampton Inn and Fairfield Inn, aren't associated with any particular region.

La Quinta is "at home in Texas but not necessarily in Boston," Mr. Crown said.

It also needs a strong logo as the company adds franchise properties that may not look like the company prototype, said Chekitan Dev, a professor of marketing and brand management for Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration.

"It becomes more important to link properties by brand because you can deliver that more consistently," Mr. Dev said.

La Quinta is also reaching out to new customers. It performs well with frequent guests but has a harder time attracting new ones.

"Consumers buy brands. They don't necessarily buy amenities," said Ms. Cary, who previously worked on marketing campaigns for Hostess snack products, Energizer batteries and Gerber Baby Foods. She also worked for Dallas-based Dean Foods Co.


Unified network

The new logo helps unify La Quinta's network, which had one logo for La Quinta Inns and another for La Quinta Inns & Suites.

The company has already started installing signs on its hotels and launched a series of ads that make light of stressful travel situations.

Mullen, an agency in Winston-Salem, N.C., that's a division of the giant agency Interpublic Group, created the campaign that suggests looking at the bright side: You get $5 for meals on your expense account, but you drop two sizes. You lose the company's biggest sales account, but your boss finally learns your name.

"Travel stress is at an all-time high," Ms. Cary said. "We wanted to be the bright spot at the end of the traveler's tunnel."