[OSM-talk] Tag name vs operator

[Lester Caine]

Alan Mintz wrote:
> At 2010-07-12 23:45, Lester Caine wrote:
>> ...
>> As others have pointed out, 'brand' may be a better choice of 'name'
>> in some cases, but in reality there are THREE possible tags in many of
>> these cases. For example
>> name=the fancy hotel
>> brand=best western
>> operator=the local best western franchise
>
> In case we want to include the franchise tag in whatever we come up with
> here, I'd like to pick a small nit.
>
> The "franchise" is the actual license or right granted to the
> "franchisee" (e.g. Bob Smith dba The Fancy Hotel) by the "franchisor"
> (e.g. Best Western Hotels).
>
> Personally, I think "franchise" is un-necessary, since name, brand, and
> operator seem to clearly identify the roles of each name/person/company
> in the examples we've talked about, not to mention that the relationship
> may not necessarily or technically be a franchise, and this would be
> near impossible to determine casually.

When one starts to look at 'McDonalds', 'KFC' and 'Burger King' then while they 
are franchises, the name is the 'brand', but a group of 'McDonalds' may well be 
operated by a single local business ... certainly overseas. This all just 
relates to how we search for things, and so simply standarising on the 'brand' 
makes perfect sense? I'm looking for a 'best western' hotel or a 'KFC' so search 
looks up all the local POI with that brand ?

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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