Face to Face: Rui Barros, Wyndham
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Wyndham Hotel Group continues to expand its portfolio. What are your growth plans and how do you plan to expand the brands?
Wyndham Hotel Group is the world’s largest hotel company by number of hotels and we are focused on expanding our brands in North America and key international markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America where there is significant demand for more hotels from our guests.
At a global level, 2013 is already proving to be an exciting year for us. Most recently on 30 May, we announced the signing of an exclusive development agreement with İlbak Turizm İşletmeleri Ve Yatirim A.Ş. for 20 Super 8 hotels in Turkey over the next 10 years. The fourth Wyndham Hotel Group brand to launch in Turkey since 2007, the Super 8 brand aims to meet the growing demand for comfortable, quality accommodation at affordable prices.
Other developments within the group include the addition of 56 properties throughout the mid-Atlantic and southeast corridor of the U.S. in January through a deal with affiliates of Colony Capital, LLC. In the same month, we signed a deal with FelCor Lodging Trust, Inc. to rebrand eight hotels in major U.S. markets and take on management of the properties.
These eight hotels opened under the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts brand on 1st March, the very same day the company rebranded 32 hotels across Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium as part of a strategic partnership with Grand City Hotels to brand 43 hotels and over 5,400 rooms over the next two years. The new hotels in Europe, which will include five Wyndham Grand, three Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, 10 Wyndham Garden, 17 TRYP by Wyndham and eight Days Inn properties mark not only the introduction of the Wyndham brand in Germany, but also the launch of TRYP by Wyndham in Belgium and the Netherlands and the first Wyndham Garden hotels anywhere in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Within Europe, the Middle East and Africa, we are now looking to build on this momentum and continue to grow right across the region.
What about in the Middle East region?
In the Middle East, where we currently have over 30 hotels and over 6,000 rooms including key cities such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama, Jeddah and Riyadh, we already have five new hotels in the pipeline. These will see the continued growth of Ramada as well as the addition of two more iconic, upper upscale Wyndham Grand properties, one in Riyadh and one in Manama as well as our first Wyndham Hotels and Resorts property in the U.A.E.
In addition we are proud to have announced plans to roll-out both the Days Inn and Super 8 economy brands in Saudi Arabia, starting with the first Days Inn which opened this month in Riyadh. Our two largest brands globally, Days Inn and Super 8 will cater to the growing need for high quality, low cost accommodation in the country and will build upon our ability to offer accommodation options for almost every kind of traveller and every kind of trip with a diverse portfolio of brands in the region spanning economy right through to upper upscale.
Which destinations or regions are the top priority for development?
Wyndham Hotel Group has ambitious development plans globally. As mentioned, we are focused on expanding our brands in North America and key international markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. All these territories are priorities for the group.
Within EMEA, we see significant potential for growth in Turkey both within the cities and numerous growing holiday resort destinations. We already have a further 10 Ramada hotels in the pipeline across the country, as well as plans to open the second Wyndham Hotels and Resorts property in the country by the end of this summer which will add another 306 guest rooms in the Petek area of Istanbul. The planned roll-out of Super 8 announced at the CATHIC conference will add a real breadth of choice to our guests.
Aside from Turkey, we are also continually evaluating potential opportunities right across the region, from our established markets such as the UK and Germany to emerging markets in Eastern Africa.
What do your booking patterns tell you about trends in hospitality and the type of traveller staying at your properties?
It very much depends on the market, but in general we are finding that our guests often aren’t defined by any one category of hotels, instead mixing and matching their choices according to a specific travel purpose or destination. This is where the flexibility and benefits of our Wyndham Rewards guest loyalty programme really come to the fore. It might be that our guests stay for business during the week at a Ramada hotel, then use their loyalty points to treat themselves and their family to a stay at one of the luxurious Wyndham Hotels and Resorts locations at the weekend.
The largest loyalty scheme in the industry by number of participating hotels, Wyndham Rewards has approximately seven million active members worldwide.
How will Wyndham adapt to make sure it reaches these new or existing markets?
Whenever we look to enter new markets, it is important for us to develop a strong understanding of the needs of guests and owners in those markets and what it will ultimately take to add value to both. Part of the way we achieve this understanding is by forming close relationships with like-hearted business partners and spending a lot of time listening!
Whilst it is very important to us that the hotels that carry our flags all around the world stay true to the essence of those brands, we are also very aware that the needs of travellers vary across the globe. To that end, when bringing new brands and hotels to market, our teams on the ground work closely with owners and operators to ensure these properties are developed in a way which makes most sense to the local market. A prime example of this would be our planned Super 8 roll-out in Saudi Arabia. In order to accommodate local needs and best serve the guests in that market, rooms will be much larger than they are in other parts of the world where the brand is present, in order to accommodate families.
We heard there have been some changes to your loyalty programme, please tell us more.
We have made some exciting changes recently which really enrich our loyalty programme, Wyndham Rewards, for existing members.
In May we introduced a new Gold Status tier to reward travellers who stay more frequently. Members can now earn a free night after every 20 qualified nights at a Wyndham Hotel Group participating property in a calendar year. Members who earn these free nights as a result of their Gold Status will continue to earn points that can be redeemed for rewards such as merchandise, gift cards and retail vouchers. Wyndham Rewards also modified its reward tier levels to make free nights even more achievable.
Now, members need only 5,500 points rather than 6,000 points to earn a free night at selected Wyndham Hotel Group properties. We are also continuously adding more partnerships to the programme and have some very exciting announcements in the pipeline in this regard.
How is technology changing how the Wyndham business operates?
The internet continues to revolutionise the way our guests are shopping, booking and sharing their hotel experiences with others. Guests increasingly expect to be connected at all times and their interaction with our hotels online is growing. Travellers book online, check reviews and use social media before, during and after their stay.
In recognition of this, Wyndham Hotel Group has rolled out a number of initiatives to assist both our guests and general managers to interact in this environment.
Last year we began displaying TripAdvisor ratings, reviews and opinions directly on our brand and loyalty websites and we also launched WynReview which provides our franchisees and owners with a free tool to help manage and track online ratings and reviews. This helps our hotels to better understand and measure customer feedback and enables hotels to benchmark themselves against competitors. Within the hotel environment itself, we also introduced free Wi-Fi for our Days Inn brand to help guests remain connected on their travels.
Wyndham was also one of the six founding members of Room Key, a hotel search engine launched in January 2012 to provide the simplicity, transparency and breadth of choice consumers have come to expect from a search engine, while delivering the flexibility, accuracy and assurance consumers have long enjoyed from hoteliers.
Through continual innovation, we will continue to enhance the booking experience for our guests and travel trade.
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