Wyndham’s New Ways to Make Money — One Text at a Time

Skift Take

Wyndham’s CEO says its tech investment is paying off. Other travel brands need to up their game.

Christiana Sciaudone, Skift

Wyndham’s tech investment is paying off, the hotelier’s CEO said Wednesday.  Wyndham Connect is allowing hotel owners to communicate by SMS with hotel guests prior to arrival, for example, and offer them early check-in or the opportunity to order food and beverage upon arrival. 

That is driving “thousands and thousands of dollars of extra room revenue” for the typical hotel owner, said Wyndham President and CEO Geoff Ballotti at the Skift Global Forum in New York. “It’s been a great ride, great investment… We’re really light years ahead of where we were when we went public” in 2017. 

The $275 million tech investment also includes partnerships with Oracle, Amazon Web Services and Salesforce, and has made it easier for franchisees to do business. Ballotti said that competitors have lagged behind on such tech investment and are just now moving from legacy property management systems to cloud platforms.

That shift enables small hotel owners to operate with just an internet connection rather than having to use a server, Ballotti said. 

Infrastructure and Mergers and Acquisitions

Wyndham’s also “very focused in growing those economy brands” alongside the $1.5 trillion in expected infrastructure investment in the U.S., which will drive demand around the country. Less than 20% of that investment has been allocated, meaning there’s ample opportunity for future growth. 

“It is already becoming a big, big lift for our small business owners that operate hotels,” Ballotti said.

There’s already an excess of demand for extended stay economy and a dearth of supply. That’s partly why they have already executed 270 contracts for one of their newest brands, Echo Suites.  

Wyndham’s also open to mergers and acquisitions if it makes sense and adds to the existing network. 

“The most important way we look through a lens of M&A is the impact it has to our small business owners,” Ballotti said. But if it’s aspirational and not in conflict with any existing product that they have in destinations in countries, they’ll consider acquiring it, he said.