According to Mark Williams, VP of North American Development for Best Western International, the company would like to develop its presence on the growing extended-stay market. The new prototype of the Best Western Plus concept allows to incorporate a flexible number of extended-stay suites.

Plans for the new-build prototype, which is designed to sit in the company's upper midscale "Best Western Plus" tier, are based on an 84,000-square-foot footprint, the same as existing new-build hotels, said Amy Hulbert, managing director of design for Best Western. "There is a lot of flexibility built into this plan," Hulbert said.Developers can choose to add extended-stay-styled suites to the floorplan if their market demands it, or those spaces (designed 50 percent larger than a standard guestroom) could be sold as typical-stay suites.While the company has not yet made specific FF&E choices, Williams said Best Western has worked with a third-party group to price development costs (including FF&E but not including land costs) in seven typical markets.