R EVENUE R ECOGNITION Lodging The Company's franchising business is designed to generate revenues for its hotel owners through the delivery of room night bookings to the hotel, the promotion of brand awareness among the consumer base, global sales efforts, ensuring guest satisfaction and providing outstanding customer service to both its customers and guests staying at hotels in its system. The Company enters into agreements to franchise its lodging brands to independent hotel owners. The Company's standard franchise agreement typically has a term of 15 to 20 years and provides a franchisee with certain rights to terminate the franchise agreement before the term of the agreement under certain circumstances. The principal source of revenues from franchising hotels is ongoing franchise fees, which are comprised of royalty fees and other fees relating to marketing and reservation services. Ongoing franchise fees typically are based on a percentage of gross room revenues of each franchised hotel and are recognized as revenue upon becoming due from the franchisee. An estimate of uncollectible ongoing franchise fees is charged to bad debt expense and included in operating expenses on the Consolidated Statements of Income. Lodging revenues also include initial franchise fees, which are recognized as revenues when all material services or conditions have been substantially performed, which is either when a franchised hotel opens for business or when a franchise agreement is terminated after it has been determined that the franchised hotel will not open. The Company's franchise agreements also require the payment of marketing and reservation fees, which are intended to reimburse the Company for expenses associated with operating an international, centralized, brand-specific reservations system, access to third-party distribution channels, such as online travel agents, advertising and marketing programs, global sales efforts, operations support, training and other related services. The Company is contractually obligated to