Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has celebrated five years as a publicly traded, pure-play hotel company. With its owner-first policy in franchising, the anniversary marks a milestone for the Parsippany, N.J.-based hotel giant as it seeks to strengthen its position in the select service sector.
Since the company went public in 2018, it has focused on growing and strengthening its select-service portfolio (midscale and economy), developing new travel experiences and opportunities for owners and guests.
Wyndham President and CEO Geoff Ballotti said that, in the last five years, Wyndham has welcomed, launched and integrated five new brands, bringing the portfolio to 24 brands worldwide.
Wyndham has also expanded into more than 55 new countries and has introduced its brands over 100 times across multiple countries, with a development pipeline of more than 1,800 hotels.
One of the biggest hotel franchising companies globally in terms of number of properties, Wyndham’s portfolio currently consists of 9,100 hotels totaling 845,000 rooms across 95 countries on six continents.
“Through it all, we’ve proven ourselves as a Company dedicated to the long-term success of our franchisees, team members and shareholders, the latter of whom have seen over $1.5 billion returned to them in the form of dividends and share repurchases. As proud as we are of all we have accomplished, we’re even more excited about our future, which has never looked brighter,” Ballotti said.
Wyndham’s achievements in the last five years include:
- Expanding its midscale and above portfolio by 63% globally while growing La Quinta by Wyndham, the biggest acquisition in Wyndham’s history, into three new continents and four new countries (New Zealand, China, Turkey and the U.A.E.).
- Introducing brands across new segments — ECHO Suites Extended Stay by Wyndham (in the extended-stay tier), Wyndham Alltra (all-inclusive) and Registry Collection Hotels (luxury).
- Growing its global pipeline by more than 50% to 226,000 rooms, of which 80% consists of new construction while increasing its pipeline in the U.S. by around 60% and its direct franchising pipeline in China by 70%.
- Simplifying its business to around 100% franchised, selling two of the company’s owned hotels while effectively quitting the hotel management business in the U.S.
- Strengthening its European portfolio with the acquisition of the Vienna House brand from Berlin-headquartered HR Group, a long-term Wyndham franchisee, and adding more than 40 new hotels and over 6,400 rooms.
- Generating more than $1.4 billion of free cash flow and returning $1.5 billion to shareholders, or close to 25% of its beginning market cap. This includes the repurchase of 16% of its outstanding common shares.
FRANCHISING
Wyndham’s achievements in franchising in the past five years include:
- Better contribution to represent more than 75% of all the bookings in the U.S. while almost doubling the size of Wyndham Rewards to over 100 million enrolled members. Almost half of all the check-ins in the U.S. were from top program members who, on average, stay about twice as long and spend twice as much.
- Investing more than $275 million, providing franchisees access to technology companies like Sabre and Oracle (property management systems), Salesforce (sales and service platform), Amperity (customer data platform) and IdeaS (revenue management system).
- Launching a mobile app, which has become Wyndham’s fastest-growing booking channel, with booking features customized for road trippers, mobile check-in and checkout and in-stay features like digital room keys. Wyndham also enabled mobile tipping to franchisees at scale.
- Receiving over 100 awards and recognitions for Wyndham Rewards.
- Increasing its franchisee retention rate to more than 95% from 92%, making it among the highest in the economy and midscale segments.
GLOBAL COMMUNITY
The company’s achievements in this area in the past five years are:
- Invested in team member work-life balance with regular team member appreciation says, yearly philanthropic-focused WISH days and hybrid and flexible work arrangements,
- Launched the Women Own the Room program, followed by the BOLD by Wyndham, which helped increase hotel ownership among women and Black entrepreneurs. So far, these two programs have resulted in over 50 signings and 12 openings.
- Offered DEI training focused on antiracism, unconscious bias and allyship while promoting gender equity. The company plans to meet its 2025 goals of 100% gender pay equity worldwide and 100% of hotel team members receiving unconscious bias training.
- Expanded its Affinity Business Groups for team members, including eight inclusive networks led by executive sponsors created to foster innovation, enhance DEI globally and drive growth.
- Supported humanitarian causes and fought human trafficking. Wyndham, a long-term partner of organizations like BEST, Polaris and ECPAT-USA, mandates training for all hotels. Earlier this year, Wyndham donated $500,000 to the AHLA Foundation’s Survivor Fund.
- Developed Wyndham Green, the program which helps franchisees lower their carbon footprints and operate using eco-friendly initiatives. All hotels around the world are required to achieve at least Level 1 Core Wyndham Green Certification.