Comfort Inn becomes Boarders

There is a new name for the hotel at the junction of state Highways 22 and 29, but the service and comfort is expected to remain the same. Comfort Inn and Suites, W7393 River Bend Road, has been converted to a Boarders Inn and Suites, operated through Cobblestone Hotels, based in Neenah. The Shawano hotel is the ninth Boarders in Wisconsin. The Shawano Country Chamber of Commerce joined with hotel management in celebrating the name change with a ribbon cutting Monday afternoon. Aside from signage, very little has changed in the existing hotel, according to manager Jason Vanden Heuvel. The changes that took place occurred within the last month, he said, when the franchise agreement with Cobblestone was signed. “It was just a matter of letting vendors know, as well as letting future and past guests know that we were going to be a different hotel,” Vanden Heuvel said. “We drove the point home that it wasn’t a downgrade or anything like that. It was just a name change; we were changing brands.” Most of the changes involved outdoor signage and anything that bore Comfort Inn and Choice branding, such as phone faceplating, signs in the breakfast room and tabletop materials in the rooms and lobby. The biggest change was removing a logo behind a rock wall in the lobby. Vanden Heuvel took on the management of the Shawano hotel in July 2013, and he said the staff will remain the same. Vanden Heuvel said he hoped to see some upgrades to the building in the future. He anticipated some new carpeting and other amenities but said nothing has been firmed up. The change has gone smoothly, although a few guests and community members were caught off guard, according to Vanden Heuvel. “We were able to get out to the community about the change,” Vanden Heuvel said. “The guests in general had some questions this (past) weekend … but most of them were just asking, ‘I see your sign is different. Am I in the right place?’” Cobblestone officials welcomed the former Comfort Inn into its family. “We are proud to welcome the new Boarders Inn and Suites by Cobblestone in Shawano, Wisconsin,” Brian Wogernese, president of Cobblestone Hotels, said in a written statement. “We are seeing more and more hotel owners, management companies/asset managers come to us for a hotel brand that they can trust. Boarders Inn and Suites offers hoteliers a flat rate and more and more people are taking notice of our simple structure. We work hard every day to keep our model as friendly as possible and the industry has noticed.”