Last year was a record one for Hilton Garden Inn, but company executives aren’t yet satisfied. Future success will be built on the brand’s three key business priorities.

Last year was a record one for Hilton Garden Inn, but company executives aren’t yet satisfied. During the opening general session of the select-service brand’s annual conference Monday, they encouraged the 1,500 general managers and sales directors in attendance to keep pushing performance further.

“2014 was our best year yet. Notice I said ‘yet.’ I did not say ‘ever.’ … We’re a brand that always looks for ways to improve,” said Don Willingham, VP of brand performance, support and sales.

“We can’t rest on our 2014 accomplishments,” he continued. “It’s a new year. We have to take our accomplishments and build on them. … We need to ask for the rates we deserve.”

Year-to-date September 2014 (the most recent data published by now-public parent company Hilton Worldwide Holdings), the Hilton Garden Inn brand posted increases in occupancy of 3% to 76.9%, average-daily-rate growth of 3.8% to $126.81 and revenue-per-available-room growth of 8.1% to $97.54.

The United States hotel industry’s upscale segment, as a point of comparison, year-to-date September 2014, posted an occupancy gain of 3.3% to 75.4%, an ADR gain of 4.9% to $127.79 and a RevPAR gain of 8.4% to $96.38, according to data from HNN parent company STR.

As of 30 September, the Hilton Garden Inn portfolio counted 605 hotels with 84,215 across the globe, of which 537 hotels and 73,437 rooms are in the U.S.

Three key priorities

Future success will be built on the brand’s three key business priorities, executives said:

driving revenue; encouraging loyalty; and increasing profitability.

Driving revenues

“We’re limited to what we can do on Tuesdays and Wednesdays because we’re pushing 90% (occupancy),” Willingham said. Opportunity exists to drive revenue on shoulder nights and weekends, he added.

The rollout of Hilton’s Global Revenue Optimization platform, or GRO, is yielding dividends. Within the approximately 500 hotels using the new system, RevPAR is up 1.6 points on average, he said.

The biggest opportunity in the year ahead is driving rate, Willingham said.

“Right now we’re still in a period of great growth in demand and limited supply. This is the perfect scenario for our brand, and we really should be taking advantage. Now is the time to grow rate. I cannot say that enough. Now is the time to grow rate.”

Encouraging loyalty

On the subject of loyalty, Willingham boasted of Hilton Garden Inn’s 11 awards in the “J.D. Power 2014 North America hotel guest satisfaction index study.”

“Being an award-winning brand is important to customers,” he said.

But what drives further loyalty?

Recognizing HHonors members is one thing. Awareness of the brand’s satisfaction guarantee—which promises to “do whatever it takes” to ensure guests are satisfied or they don’t pay—is another.

“Guest loyalty is about 20 points higher when (guests) know about the promise,” Willingham explained.

Mark Nogal, regional head of focused service brand management for the EMEA region, let slip another initiative in the works: dedicated HHonors floors for guests. Not only will they recognize the brand’s most loyal guests, but they’ve generated increased interest and new loyalty member applications in initial testing, he said.

Increasing profitability

The company’s “Show Me the Savings” campaign encouraged property-level personnel to submit cost-saving ideas. The best and brightest of those are being shared brand-wide throughout the year, Willingham said.

“We encourage you to implement those ideas,” he said. “We’re happy to say it’s working.”

The initiative has uncovered up to $150,000 in annual savings per hotel, he added.