Hacker News Reader

Comment by zeroonetwothree | Hacker News Reader

It’s tricky because the chains (like “Hyatt”) don’t actually own any hotels. They are generally owned by local ownership groups and it can be hard to figure out the real owner.

That’s also why one Hyatt could be 5/5 and another 1/5. The chains don’t do a great job of quality control.

View on HN

That's a cop out. What's the point of a brand if quality control is all over the place?

Most McDonald's are franchises, and they famously give very similar experiences wherever you are. Not identical, obviously, but a Big Mac is a Big Mac.

This is absolutely on Hyatt corporate. They should have policies regulating these types of detection systems.

I agree that Hyatt needs to take some responsibility, but not all franchises are equal, e.g. prior to inflation it was ~1-2M USD investment average to startup a McDonalds, you still must follow their rules, and it’s not hands-off.

> What's the point of a brand if quality control is all over the place?

Extracting rents comes in all shapes and sizes.

But in that case brand association is an empty signal. As a paying customer, I can't meaningfully infer anything from it, and would thus best disregard it entirely.

They lock you in mostly with loyalty incentives vs brand recognition. Ask any of your friends who travels for work frequently where they stay and why. The answer always has to do with the points on offer not the experience which is more or less the same across most hotels and pricepoints until you reach a very very high pricepoint.

McDonalds is a real estate company, not a hamburger company. Corporate often owns the land the restaurant sits on and they charge the franchisee rent. I presume they could raise the rent or kick the franchisee out if they fail to live up to the required standards. I don't know that other franchise operations have the degree of corporate control that McDonalds has.

https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burg...

I hate seeing this repeated because it is plainly untrue despite being technically true.

An attention grabbing headline that feels smart but is really just careful half-truth writing.

McDonald's chargers fees that are a percentage of a stores gross sales and rent that is usually a base fee plus a percentage of sales.

What they are actually doing is folding part of the food sales cut into rent so they can evict you if they don't like you.

So while "McDonald's is actually a real estate company" gets clicks, the truth is they are a hamburger company with a huge cash flow from selling burgers, which they funnel through "Rent" for control. They also do own a ton of commercial real estate, but they aren't cashing out on that.

This isnt exactly true. They do not own the property but their contracts give them full ownership over policies and processes of the location. It's an essential part of their brand by the way, to assure continuity.

If Hyatt is providing its name for a fee, then Hyatt indeed has responsibility for this incident

Reply on news.ycombinator.com