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Like a democracy, there is an elected leader. At BWH, parent group of the iconic Best Western brand, that distinction rests with Larry Cuculic, who was appointed CEO in 2021, taking over for David Kong, who had held the role for 17 years. Cuculic is spindly with a shiny pate, a West Point grad who in the mid-1970s played basketball under coaching legend, Mike Krzyzewski. Cuculic is well over six-feet tall, but, perhaps, his biggest distinction among peers is his public persona. On conference panel sessions, he routinely bounds on stage carrying a large, black binder, as if ready to take a deposition( Cuculic was general counsel at Best Western prior to becoming CEO), giving the appearance of an eager and overly prepared executive, who doesn’ t want to go off book, but he can also riff with the best of them.
For a former cadet, strict attention to detail is a prevailing trait and a necessity when leading a company with 18 brands, from economy through to luxury, and one
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Ron Pohl has been at BWH Hotels for 18 years and leads WorldHotels.
which generated $ 8.5 billion in global hotel revenue in the past year alone. It’ s a journey that didn’ t happen overnight and one that went through the ratification steps. Up until 2010, Best Western was, well, just Best Western— a single brand with roots stretching
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back to the 1940s as a referral service for hotels. By the end of the aughts, most of Best Western’ s competitors maintained multiple brands, either launched internally or through acquisition. In 2010, Best Western passed a ballot approving three descriptors:
Check-in area at Aiden San Antonio Riverwalk.
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Best Western, Best Western Plus and Best Western Premier, to better catalogue and differentiate the breadth of its product.
“ That was a result of our members understanding and recognizing we need to distinguish the variety of hotels we offer guests,” Cuculic said.“ There was a business case for it.” Longtime BWH executive Ron Pohl, president of international operations and president of WorldHotels, BWH’ s luxury soft brand, picked up on the business case for it: hotel performance.“ When you have all hotels in the same bucket, then there’ s a perception that they should all be priced about the same,” he said, when, in actuality, there were Best Westerns across
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July / August 2025 hotelsmag. com 41 |