Geographically, it expanded across the country by opening hotels in the west. In the 1980s, the company started the industry's first market segmentation strategy, using a range of hotel brands across price points. The company changed its name to Quality Inns International in 1972 and, in 1990, the parent company became known as Choice Hotels International. Lodging Magazine wrote that, by 1969, Quality Courts Motels was the world's 'largest association of independent motel operators'. In 1968, Bainum merged his business, Park Consolidated Motels, Inc., with Quality Courts Motels, assumed the role of president and CEO, and moved the company's headquarters from Daytona Beach to Silver Spring, Maryland. He later franchised his first Quality Courts motel in 1963. Bainum Sr., who ran a Washington, D.C., plumbing business, opened his first hotel in Silver Spring, Maryland. In 1963, the organization became a for-profit corporation and changed its name to Quality Courts Motels, Inc. All of its hotels needed to meet certain quality standards and offer amenities like air conditioning, telephones, swimming pools, paved driveways, and wall-to-wall carpeting. īy the early 1960s, Quality Courts United had approximately 600 members. The chain initially remained east of the Mississippi River. It would undergo several name changes before becoming what is known today as Choice Hotels International. Quality Courts United, Inc., which began as a nonprofit referral chain of seven motels in Florida, was founded in 1939.

Clarion suites