"These high marks are indeed significant and testament to the Best Inns concept which includes EverGreen rooms, a healthy travel alternative for the millions of Americans with allergies or asthma," said Jon Leven, senior vice president of marketing for US Franchise Systems (USFS), parent company of the franchisor of the Best Inns and Best Suites brand.

With EverGreen, guests enjoy the benefits of freshly filtered air and bottle-quality water for drinking and bathing. Each EverGreen guestroom contains two EverGreen Aire™ cleaners, an EverGreen filtered drinking system and an EverGreen filtered shower system with massage head.

The 2004 North America Guest Satisfaction Index Study is based on responses from 29,424 guests who stayed in a hotel between December 2003 and June 2004. The study, now in its eighth year, incorporates a new index model for 2004, measuring satisfaction based on six factors: guest room, check-in/check-out, costs and fees, hotel facilities, food and beverage, and hotel services.

Headquartered in Westlake Village, Calif., J.D. Power and Associates (www.jdpower.com) is an ISO 9001-registered global marketing information services firm operating in key business sectors including market research, forecasting, consulting, training and customer satisfaction. The firm's quality and satisfaction measurements are based on responses from millions of consumers annually.

Best Inns and Best Suites is a mid-priced hotel brand that offers single, double and suite accommodations, with free local phone calls, complimentary breakfast, cable television with one free premium movie channel or pay-per-view, and ESPN. Guests enjoy membership in the ‘Best Traveler' frequent guest loyalty program, and all hotels feature at least 10 percent of their rooms as EverGreen accommodations for health conscious, environmentally-sensitive guests. The brand has also been named the number-one hotel chain in the economy segment in this year's Business Travel News' ‘Top U.S. Hotel Chain Survey of U.S. Corporate Travel Buyers' for the second time.

As of June 30, 2004 there were 103 Best Inns and Best Suites open across the U.S. Source:usfsi.com