Hotel industry veteran Bob Hazard will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) on January 26-28, 2015, in Los Angeles.
Hazard served as chairman, president, and CEO of Choice Hotels International from 1980 to 1996. During that period, he and his team grew Choice from a regional group of 339 Quality Inns into a six-brand, global hotel company with more than 3,800 inns, hotels, and resorts, offering more than 330,000 guestrooms in 43 countries. Choice Hotels’ value rose from $15 million in 1980 to more than a billion dollars when the company went public in 1996.
Under Hazard’s leadership, Choice became the first hotel company to offer multiple brand names at different price points with the introduction of limited-service, luxury-budget, and new construction Comfort Inns in 1980. This was followed by the addition of Sleep Inns, Comfort Suites, Quality Suites, and Clarion Inns, Hotels and Resorts, and later Econolodge and Rodeway Inns. This same multi-brand strategy became the preferred business model for other hotel franchisors such as Marriott, Hilton, Starwood, InterContinental, Carlson, and Wyndham.

Hazard was actively involved in the American Hotel and Lodging Association and is the only two-time winner of the New York Hospitality Conference Silver Plate Award.
