Motel 6
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| Private | |
| Industry | Motel |
| Founded | 1962 |
| Founder | William Becker and Paul Greene |
| Headquarters | Carrollton, Texas, U.S. |
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Area served
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United States, Canada |
| Owner | The Blackstone Group |
| Website | www |
Motel 6 is a chain of budget motels in the United States and Canada. Motel 6 also operates Studio 6, a chain of extended stay hotels. In October 2012, Accor Hotels concluded the sale of the Motel 6 chain to The Blackstone Group for $1.9 billion. The Blackstone Group then established G6 Hospitality LLC as the management company for Motel 6 and Studio 6.
Motel 6 was founded in Santa Barbara, California, in 1962, by two local building contractors, William Becker and Paul Greene. The partners developed a plan to build motels with rooms at bargain rates. They decided on a $6.00 room rate per night (equivalent to $48 in 2016) that would cover building costs, land leases, and janitorial supplies; hence the company name "Motel 6".
Becker and Greene had specialized in building low-cost housing developments, and they wanted to provide an alternative to other major hotel chains, such as Holiday Inn, whose locations were becoming increasingly upscale in quality and price in the 1960s, after starting out with a budget-oriented concept. Becker and Greene spent two years formulating their business model, and searched for ways to cut costs as much as possible. During the chain's early years, Motel 6 emphasized itself as a "no-frills" lodging chain with rooms featuring coin-operated black-and-white television receivers instead of the free color televisions found in the more expensive motels, along with functional interior decor, to reduce the time it took to clean the rooms. The first location in Santa Barbara had no restaurant on-site, a notable difference from other hotels of the era; most locations to this day have no on-site dining, though there is usually a choice of restaurants nearby.
As the 1960s progressed, the Motel 6 idea became very popular in the lodging industry and other chains began to imitate the concept, as Motel 6 was slowly beginning to take a small share of the market away from the traditional hotels. In 1965 Motel 6 opened its 15th property, and first location outside of California, in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. Realizing the need to move quickly, Becker and Green set out on an ambitious expansion program and had opened its 25th location in Gilroy, California, by 1966. The occupancy rate by then was about 85 percent, well above the industry average, and as a result of their success, Motel 6 became an attractive acquisition target. Becker and Greene sold the chain to an investment group in 1968.
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