SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The first Days Inn and Suites in the North has officially opened in Yellowknife.
Days Inn Canada president Irwin Prince, left, Mayor Mark Heyck, and Tim Tindle, regional vice-president of Atlific Hotels, cut the ribbon at the grand opening of Days Inn and Suites Yellowknife on Thursday. - Sandy Budd photo
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The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the international hotel chain's latest addition took place last Thursday at the Days Inn and Suites Yellowknife on Franklin Avenue, formerly known as Chateau Nova Hotel and Suites.
In addition to the name change, other changes at the 80-room hotel include new uniforms for the staff of 24, new carpeting, upgraded kitchenette glassware, and Days Inn standard triple-sheeting bedding style.
"That's the difference between a branded hotel and a not branded hotel," said general manager of Days Inn and Suites Yellowknife, Ibrahim Neviri. "Everybody thinks it's just the bedding. But it's not just the bed it's the cleaning behind it, it's the way the staff behaves, the way the staff really takes care of customer service - the manager responds. I've only got three days to respond to customer complaints."
Toronto-based Days Inn Canada president Irvin Prince, who joined Mayor Mark Heyck and Atlific hotel management company executive Tim Tindle for the grand opening last week, called the expansion of the Days Inn brand to Yellowknife -- its only location North of 60 -- "exciting.
"This is fantastic," Prince said. "We knew we had customers coming in to Yellowknife but we had nowhere that we could offer them to stay. This expands our footprint north from High Level (Alta.)."
Tindle, regional vice-president of Atlific Hotels, the hotel management company that helped transform Chateau Nova into a Days Inn, said the business will see better performance as a Days Inn.
"We're seeing very good signs of that already," he said, adding the Yk hotel will reap benefits from the Days Inn chain's international marketing.
"A lot of their focus is on marketing and generating business. The Nova group is really only known in the northern parts of the (provinces). There's 100 Days Inn and Suites in Canada, whereas the Nova group I think they might have had about ten or twelve."
Days Inn is adding Yellowknife to its roster of marketed international travel destinations, Prince said.
"We market around the world so we're attending trade shows and visiting clients in China, we're in India, we're in Germany and the UK. So as we're out into these markets we're selling our distribution channel, our hotels, and one of the things we'll be featuring from now on is Yellowknife," he said. "And that's on the business side. On the tourism side, if you want to come to see the Northern Lights, come do some fishing, hunting, sledding, whatever it is in a pristine part of Canada few Canadians visit, we've got a location for you now.
"Yellowknife has so much to offer and the North has so much to offer. I think one of the things the brand will do for Yellowknife is broaden that exposure. Because now as we're selling tours into the country, it's not just come into Vancouver, come into Edmonton, go back home. Now it's come into Edmonton or anywhere else into Canada and then head up North."
Jason McEvoy, president of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, said the increased exposure the international hotel chain will bring to the city will have spin-off benefits for other Yk businesses.
"Certainly there's going to be some spinoff if we could increase traffic to Yellowknife," he said.
Days Inn, a mid-market, premium economy brand, will be keeping its prices in Yellowknife competitive to the rest of the city's hotels, Tindle said.
