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In a bid to burnish its downscale image and attract more business travelers, midtown's venerable New Yorker Hotel is joining the Ramada hotel chain.
Although the 70-year-old hotel - which is owned by Rev. Sung Myung Moon's Unification Church-has been popular with international and leisure travelers since it reopened for business in 1994, it has had a difficult time luring higherpaying corporate clients. New Yorker executives hope that flying the Ramada flag will help shift that balance.
"The idea is to change our market mix," says Barry Mann, the hotel's general manager. "We're expecting a tremendous volume of corporate business."
Church tie remains
Beginning in January, the New Yorker will become a franchisee of the Ramada chain. The church will continue to own and operate the hotel. Ramada - which is strictly a franchising organization, neither owning nor operating any of the approximately 1,100 hotels that bear its name - will provide marketing, quality control and employee training services.
Such assistance won't come cheap. Ramada franchisees pay an average of 8.5% of their gross room revenues in exchange for access to the chain's marketing and operational expertise. If enough new business does not come through the doors, the deal could well wind up being a wash for the New Yorker.
Worth the risk
But Mr. Mann, who has just helped supervise a four-year, S30 million renovation of the hotel, says he...