WINGATE INNS GOING TO CALIFORNIA AS BRAND OPENS FIRST HOTEL IN SAN FRANCISCO (1/02)

Business and leisure travelers to San Francisco and the San Francisco International Airport will benefit from free guestroom high-speed Internet access, enabling technology and a 100% stisfaction guarantee policy at the new four-story, 88-room franchised Wingate Inn hotel at 373 South Airport Boulevard.

"When I learned what Wingate Inns had to offer, I realized it was the perfect hotel brand for the San Francisco area," says owner Thakor Desai. "I was looking for an upper mid-market hotel chain that targeted business travelers and Wingate Inns fit the bill perfectly. I expect the hotel to be extremely successful due to the many businesses and companies in the vibrant area surrounding the hotel and airport."

"We're very excited about the opening of our first Wingate Inn hotel in California," exclaims Keith J. Pierce, president and CEO of Wingate Inns International, Inc. "The brand has been expanding across the United States since our first hotel opened in 1996 and this opening just pushes the brand past the final barrier of having hotels in every region of the United States. As for the hotel itself, we believe both business and leisure travelers will appreciate the high-tech amenities, top-notch service, enabling technology and all-inclusive pricing package at the Wingate Inn hotel at the San Francisco International Airport."

As a part of the Wingate Inn chain, this franchised Wingate Inn hotel features high-speed Internet access connections in every guestroom, as well as in the meeting room and boardroom. Guests with a standard Ethernet card and RJ45 connector can enjoy free access to the Internet from guestrooms at speeds up to 50 times faster than conventional 56K modems. Meeting room and boardroom high-speed Internet access is rentable on a half-day and full day basis.

The hotel also features standard amenities such as express, automated check-in and check-out, as well as in-room cordless phones and two-line desk phones with dataport, speaker, conference call and voice mail capabilities. Wingate Inn hotels also offer meeting rooms, 24-hour access to a business center with free usage of fax, printing and copying equipment, and wireless phones that can be checked out from the front desk and used anywhere within the hotel for both incoming and outgoing calls.

Although focused on providing efficient working conditions for the business traveler, Wingate Inn hotels also provide amenities for leisure travelers such as an in-room entertainment system featuring pay-per-view movies and Nintendo 64 games. Guests can also benefit from larger-than-average guestrooms (12' x 28'), an expanded continental breakfast, a whirlpool, exercise facilities, free accommodations for children 17 and under accompanied by adults, the Wingate Inn 100% gest satisfaction guarantee and in-room safes, coffee makers, hair dryers, microwave ovens, refrigerators and ironing boards with irons. In addition, the Wingate Inn hotel in San Francisco offers whirlpool suites and dry-cleaning service, with room rates starting at $130 and suite rates at $170.

Wingate Inns is an all-new construction hotel chain that opened its first franchised hotel in July 1996. Its focused service, upper mid-market franchised hotels feature sophisticated, consumer-based technology and comfortable, oversized rooms that were created in response to business travelers' needs. All Wingate Inn hotels are independently owned and operated under Franchise agreements with Wingate Inns International, Inc.