Trivantis Provides Best Western with Multiple eLearning Solutions from a Single Source

Profile

Best Western International Inc. is The World’s Largest Hotel Chain®, with 4,200 independently owned and operated franchise hotels. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, Best Western supports more than 316,095 quality guest rooms located in 80 countries and territories throughout the world.

Best Western’s team provides support and training services to tens of thousands of employees of its franchise hotels. With worldwide locations and a limited number of trainers, an elearning solution was essential to leverage Best Western’s management expertise and knowledge across all of the member owned hotels.

Challenge

Developing online courses that could be accessed by associates presented a challenge for Best Western because computer technology varied widely across all hotels.

“In the beginning, we thought we’d simply publish the courses on CDs or possibly have a third party host courses on the Web,” said Julie Metelski, Best Western hospitality and management trainer, “but we really needed to track who had signed up for courses, who completed the courses, who passed, and more. To manage the courses and the data, we began looking at learning management systems (LMS). Our prior success with Lectora and Trivantis led us to consider CourseMill LMS Services.”

Solution

Best Western’s first LMS decision was to select either an installed software or a hosting service solution. “Our IT group wasn’t keen on supporting and maintaining an in-house LMS,” said Metelski, “so Trivantis’ CourseMill —a hosted learning management system—was a perfect selection for us. We’re able to track and monitor our learners’ performances without adding additional IT support or equipment,” added Metelski.

“We’ve come to utilize Trivantis as a partner in our elearning program, said Metelski. In addition to implementing Lectora and CourseMill, we’ve also engaged Trivantis’ Custom Development Services (CDS) team.”

The CDS team built a series of courses for Best Western hotel owners and their staff on the efficient, profitable management of reservations. “The Trivantis team kept the course development on schedule, which was important to us. The resulting courses were professionally done and well-received when we rolled them out. Regardless of their level of computer skills, our associates are finding the courses to be easy-to-use and beneficial,” said Metelski.

“We currently have thousands of users accessing Best Western’s Continuing Education Center and taking the first required training courses. We could not have accomplished this without Trivantis’ help and great products.”

Results

In just over two months, Best Western completed the development of its first training module, brought the CourseMill learning management system online and launched its first phase of elearning to its North American hotels. Within the first six weeks of the rollout, the online training proved easily accessible by associate hotels with nearly 4,000 associates’ employees taking the courses. Phase two of the online training will be to Best Western’s international members. “We currently have thousands of users accessing Best Western’s Continuing Education Center and taking the first required training courses. We could not have accomplished this without Trivantis’ help and great products,” said Metelski.