Formed in June 2018 as a spin-off from Wyndham Worldwide, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has grown to become the world’s largest hotel franchising company by number of properties. Here, RLI meets up with Dimitris Manikis, President for EMEA to speak about the ongoing growth of the business and how this will continue moving forward.
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts makes hotel travel possible for all, so that wherever people travel Wyndham will be there to welcome them. This is the single-minded mission which drives the business forward every day.
Today the company has approximately 9,000 hotels across more than 90 countries with a global portfolio of 22 hotel brands, which can accommodate every traveller on every budget whether it be economy, midscale or upscale.
Despite all the fluctuation and change in the industry within the past two years, Wyndham has managed to maintain their goals and growth strategy. “In reality, what actually changed for us was the way we looked at things on a daily basis and how digital elements increased in a much shorter time frame,” explains Dimitris Manikis, President for EMEA. “Implementations that would normally take five to seven years were being completed in 18-24 months as Covid-19 impacted our business and the wider industry.”
Even with such a selection of brands already in a multitude of markets, the company continues to grow and increase its global presence with new introductions and brand inaugurations. Recently they have launched their Days Inn brand in Turkey and in the UAE in Dubai. They have expanded their lifestyle offering TRYP by Wyndham and seen success with their Trademark Collection by Wyndham which allows individual hotels to have an association with the brand whilst keeping their name.
“Additionally we have entered the all-inclusive market with our Wyndham Alltra brand, launched the Registry Collection Hotels and we are moving forward with the introduction of La Quinta into Europe as well as other territories,” highlights Manikis.
In the past few months the business has also grown into the leisure market with the introduction of a dozen resorts under the Wyndham, Ramada and Wyndham Grand Residences brand tiers and they see this leisure market as a segment that has enormous growth potential moving forward.
Continuing the discussion of moving forward, Manikis spoke to us about the desire to be present in further amazing destinations in the future, with Mauritius being one that is high on their target list. They are also looking to enhance their presence in leisure markets such as Spain, Portugal and the South of France. Additional growth in Greece is something else under consideration and Wyndham is also due to launch its first site in Cyprus very soon and leisure markets, along with key metropolitan cities are locations being targeted for future sites.
“Retention is certainly as important as growth!” remarks Dimitris when we ask about how the portfolio remains attractive and exciting. “If you don’t have clients who want to return, you will not have a business. Our retention rate today is between 95 and 96 per cent and we maintain this by having an operational team in place across Europe, Middle East, Eurasia and Africa whose sole role is to work with owners, hoteliers and general managers to maintain the high standards of our portfolio.”
The acceleration of digital is one of the aforementioned implementations at Wyndham in the last couple of years. As fewer customers were in hotel lobbies or restaurants and leisure spaces, the company needed to become more agile and pivot to reach them instead of online in their own homes. A key feature of this plan was to upgrade the Wyndham app. With a staggering 92 million members on the Wyndham Rewards loyalty program, the time had come to update this app to better talk to their online community, the true followers of the brand.
“While face-to-face can never be replaced by digital, we aim to ensure that digital is there to ensure consumers are listening to our message,”
he exclaims.
Sustainability is another topic on the mind of every brand and the Wyndham Green certification highlights that sustainability is here to stay and that with their diverse portfolio, education and training in this area is pivotal. It remains a continuous effort to train, educate, teach people and make sure that our employees understand that sustainability is a key agenda for the industry, for today and the future.
The company has seen monumental success over the years as they are an asset light business that has a flexible model, with their umbrella of hotel brands being a key differentiator for them in the market. Their phenomenal amount of loyalty program members and the strength of their leadership team are other key pointers that have helped to build the brand and to maintain its leading position in the market.
“We believe in the democratisation of travel, it is not a privilege of the few, it is for the many to enjoy and this is why we have the presence that we have and the brands that we have. The culture of our company is Count on Me so guests can forever count on us to do the right thing, today and tomorrow,” says Manikis.
“Everything we do is a marathon not a sprint. We cannot force change, it needs to come through acceptance, education, training, new concepts and new ideas through new people and new talent joining the industry. I am more excited about hospitality today than I have ever been and I am looking forward to what the future brings in this era for hospitality,” concludes Manikis.
