Best Western

Best Western International, Inc., operator of the Best Western Hotel brand, operates about 4,000 hotels. The chain, with its corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, operates 2,163 hotels in North America.

In 1964, Best Western took the first step towards global expansion when 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. Since it no longer operates under a single brand, Best Western concurrently modified its slogan in 2011 from "the world's largest hotel chain" to "the world's largest hotel family."

History

Best Western began in the years following World War II. At the time, most hotels were either large urban properties or smaller family owned roadside hotels. In California, a network of independent hotel operators began making referrals of each other to travelers. This small and informal network eventually grew into the modern Best Western hotel chain founded by M.K. Guertin in 1946.

Western

Western may refer to:

Common uses and meanings

Places

Art, entertainment, and media

Educational institutions

Best

Best or The Best may refer to:

Geography

People

Companies and organizations

Food and drink

Medicine

Games

Acronyms

Film

A film, also called a movie, motion picture or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession. A film is created by photographing actual scenes with a motion picture camera; by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques; by means of CGI and computer animation; or by a combination of some or all of these techniques and other visual effects. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to the industry of films and filmmaking or to the art of filmmaking itself. The contemporary definition of cinema is the art of simulating experiences to communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty or atmosphere by the means of recorded or programmed moving images along with other sensory stimulations.

The process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry.

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various arts, such as comics, fiction, film, games, radio, and television which tell stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in the American Old West, often centering on the life of a nomadic cowboy or gunfighter. Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape of deserts and mountains. Specific settings include ranches, small frontier towns and saloons of the Wild West. Characters typically include Native Americans, bandits, lawmen, outlaws and soldiers. Some are set in the American colonial era.

Western films first became well-attended in the 1930s, and were highly popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the most acclaimed Westerns were released during this time – including High Noon (1952), Shane (1953), The Searchers (1956), and The Wild Bunch (1969). Classic Westerns such as these have been the inspiration for various films about Western-type characters in contemporary settings, such as Junior Bonner (1972) set in the 1970s and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) in the 21st century. The Western was the most popular Hollywood genre from the early 20th century to the 1960s.