Benikea: best 'affordable' night in Korea
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Benikea Hotel Dongdaemun in Seoul
By Jung Min-ho
For a long time, many travelers griped about Seoul’s few accommodation options between luxury hotels and cheap ― but often trashy ― motels.
Filling the niche demand was the idea behind creating hotel brand Benikea, which stands for “Best Night in Korea.” Since its birth in 2009, Benikea has grown into one of the best-known mid-range hotel names in Korea.
According to a brand awareness survey last year, Benikea (34.5 percent) ranked second only after Ramada (76 percent) and ahead of its rivals Tokyo Inn (33 percent), Best Western (26.5 percent) and Ibis (16.5 percent).
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Over the past seven years, Benikea has increased the number of its locations to 51. The pace of growth may be slower than expected, but it reflects the determination of the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), the developer and manager of the brand, for its strict quality standard.
Four hotels were removed from the membership last year for failing to meet the quality requirements, which include conditions of rooms and service quality.
The KTO is not the operator of Benikea. It only provides support services and consulting to help member hotels become more appealing to customers once they join the alliance.
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Benikea Hotel Jeju is one of six Benikea locations in the resort Island of Jeju. / Courtesy of KTO
“The best part of Benikea is its cost-effectiveness,” a KTO official said. Staying one night at any of its chain hotels costs about 100,000 won ($90), which is about one-third of the prices of rooms at luxury hotels, while enjoying clean and comfortable facilities.
Benikea hotels can be found in all parts of Korea, including all major cities and smaller ones in the country’s eight provinces.
“Benikea hotels offer the same quality of services to customers anywhere they stay,” the official said. “The ratio of foreign guests to the hotels has increased over the past few years.”
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A room at Benikea Hotel Haeundae in Busan
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offers information, including room prices, locations and facilities of each hotel, in four languages (English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean).
When the KTO founded Benikea, having chain hotels overseas was never on its mind. But it started to see the opportunity for developing it as an international brand when a Japanese hotel in Kyushu joined in 2013. Benikea added another hotel in Los Angeles the following year.
Success strategies
With the rise of China’s middle class, the tourism industry grew in the mid-2000s in Korea, when foreign brands dominated the lodging industry.
So the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the KTO introduced Benikea to win some market share back from them.
Building more hotels would take time and money ― and it was not the sort of job for a government. So they came up with the idea of an association of existing hotels and managing the quality by the same standards. This is how Benikea was born.
The KTO spends about 2 billion won every year to provide a wide range of support for the member hotels from promotions to market analysis.
Improving brand value has been the key job for the KTO, which advertises Benikea via TV, radio, newspapers, travel magazines and social media.
The KTO also offers a biannual training program for all hotel employees and conducts evaluations through secret inspections.
By the end of 2018, the KTO plans to hand over management rights to Benikea member hotels.
“Then, the job will be out of our hands,” a KTO official said. “We will try our best to make it an example of successful collaboration between the public and private sectors.”