Westin Hotels & Resorts Franchise Formats Offered

Westin's main franchise offering is its standard upper upscale hotel, a structure accommodating 100 to 1,350 guest rooms, with a special emphasis on health and wellness for their business and recreational guests. Wellness features include the famous Heavenly bed, fitness centers, swimming pools, whirlpool (depending on location), fitness equipment room, happy hour jogs, specialty fruit-infused cocktails, and smoothies. The hotels also offer standard business features, such as conference rooms and technology rooms. 

Franchisees may elect to supplement their Westin hotel location with a Heavenly Spa by Westin Spa. The Heavenly Spa cannot be operated independently; it must be attached to a Westin hotel franchise.

Westin may, from time to time, permit potential franchisees to build residential units as an add-on to their Westin hotel, subject to additional restrictions, overview, and approval requirements that go beyond the terms of the standard Westin franchise agreement. Residential units can only be operated in conjunction with a standard Westin hotel franchise.

Westin Hotels & Resorts Franchise Opportunities – History

The Westin Hotel story begins in 1930 when a group of competing hotel owners decided to come together and operate under one management company due to the depleting effects of the Great Depression. Severt W. Thurston, Frank Dupar, and Peter and Adolph Schmidt formed Western Hotels, which consisted of 17 locations across Washington and Idaho.

Over the next 10 years, the company expanded throughout the west coast to Vancouver, Oregon, California, and Alaska. By 1958, the vast majority of locations merged under a common chain identity as a single corporate development. Western Hotels began worldwide expansion, with their first location outside of the US and Canada being in Guatemala. The company continued to successfully expand, and for its 50th anniversary in 1980, officially became Westin Hotels - a combination of the words "western" and "international."

Since then Westin has undergone several ownership changes, including its 1994 sale to Starwood Resorts and Hotels, which in turn was acquired by Marriott International in 2016, forming the world's largest hotel and resort company.

In many ways, Westin Hotels & Resorts presaged the wellness trend among upper upscale travel that has come to gain mass adoption today. Most notable is the chain's 1999's debut of its signature bed. Westin is the first hotel brand to create, name, and market a superior bed, the Westin Heavenly Bed, which was so successful it launched into a retail collection that is sold today in partnership with Nordstrom, proving that Westin's brand loyalty extends beyond just hotels and resorts. This remains the franchise's greatest competitive differentiator and advantage.

What Does A Westin Hotels & Resorts Franchise Cost?

Buying a newly constructed standard, 250-room Westin Hotels and Resorts franchise requires as little as $61,067,240 and as much as $93,833,940 in estimated initial investment, including a franchise application fee of $100,000 (calculated as the $85,000 base application cost plus an additional $300 fee per room beyond the first 200 rooms). This estimated investment range does not include the cost of your hotel's land, permits, or associated expenses.

Below we describe in more detail Westin's application fee categories:

New Hotel

• Constructing a Westin Hotel that is entirely new to the franchise system
  
• Application fee calculated as $85,000 base fee plus $300 per room beyond the initial 200 rooms

Conversion Hotel

• Converting a Westin Hotel that is already being operated by a Westin franchisee or by the franchisor 
  
• The application fee is calculated as greater of $150,000 or $500 per room
  

Heavenly Spa by Westin

• Supplementing franchised Westin Hotel with a Heavenly Spa

•  The application fee (for the spa) is $27,000 (over and above the hotel application fee)

Westin franchise owners pay an ongoing royalty of 7% of monthly gross room sales and 3% of monthly gross food and beverage sales, payable by the 15th day after the end of each month.

Westin Hotels & Resorts Franchise System Size and Composition

There are around 267 Westin units open or in the brand's development pipeline, comprising approximately nearly 100,000 guest rooms. About half of Westin's units are franchised and around 60% are located in the United States. Globally, Westin does around $4.4 billion in sales. 

Westin Hotels & Resorts Franchise Parent Company

Westin is one of several prominent brands within Marriott International, the largest collection of hotels and lodging in the world. Other hospitality names owned by Marriott International include element by Westin, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Four Points by Sheraton, Marriott Hotels & Resorts, JW Marriott, Delta Hotels by Marriott, Marriott Executive Apartments, Courtyard by Marriott, Residence Inn by Marriott, A Hotels by Marriott, Springhill Suites by Marriott, AC Hotels by Marriott, Protea Hotels by Marriott, Fairfield by Marriott, Towneplace Suites by Marriott, Edition, The Luxury Collection, W Hotels, Bulgari Hotels & Resorts, The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, Autograph Collection Hotels, Le Meridien, Tribute Portfolio, Renaissance Hotels, Gaylord Hotels, Aloft Hotels, and Moxy Hotels.