Best Western
international hotel chain
Best Western International, Inc. owns the Best Western Hotels & Resorts brand, which it licenses to over 4,500 hotels worldwide. The franchise, with its corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, includes more than 2,000 hotels in North America. The brand was founded by M. K. Guertin in 1946. As of December 2021, Larry Cuculic is the president and CEO of Best Western. As of 2018, it was a nonprofit owned by its franchisee members.
In 1964 Canadian hotel owners joined the system. Best Western then expanded to Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand in 1976.
In 2002 Best Western International launched Best Western Premier in Europe and Asia. (The other hotels in the chain were known as Best Western.) In 2011, the chain's branding system-wide changed to a three-tiered system: Best Western, Best Western Plus, and Best Western Premier.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Best Western” as international hotel chain. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as international hotel chain. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q830334. VIAF identifies the subject as 148675800. The Library of Congress control number is n79101747. 4 of 24 selected statements include explicit references; 21 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 2021, 2018 and 1964.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Best Western”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Best Western primary sources, Best Western archive and Best research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Best Western”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Best Western” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.