Wyndham Worldwide, leading US-based international hospitality chain, is hopeful of introducing more brands from its portfolio in the India market over the next two years. Considering their primacy in the mid-market space, Wyndham leadership believes that the India market with large middle class base would be conducive for their mid-scale brands.
Stephen Holmes, Chairman & CEO of Wyndham Worldwide said that they are “very strong” in the mid-scale hospitality space with wide choice of brands to cater to the fast evolving demand scenario for “good value for money” hotels in India. “The number of middle class Indians is projected to reach 200 million by 2020. They would not be looking at staying at luxury hotels when they travel.” Wyndham can offer great combination of products with good value propositions, he said.
“We haven’t brought all the brands in our portfolio into India yet,” he said when asked about brands like Super 8 which is the leading mid-scale brand in China. However, he said that Wyndham will bring the Super 8 brand into India at the right time. “We will bring it here at the right time. We don’t want to introduce it in the market and not able to deliver as a strong mid-market brand,” he added. He said that the company is keen to grow more Wyndham and Wyndham Grand brands in India market.
When asked about the reason for Wyndham not able to strengthen their brand presence except for Ramada brand in India, Holmes said that the pace of growth is not uniform across markets. However, Wyndham has been able to overtake many international hotel companies in terms of number of hotels in many markets over a period of time. “We were the first hotel company to open 1,000 hotels in China,” he said. He expressed the confidence that Wyndham group will have much larger presence in India on a proportional basis compared to any other international group over the next five years. “It is just a matter of pace of growth and the rate of bringing brands,” he said.
Commenting on the flexible ‘franchisee’ model of relationship with hotel owners which Wyndham still follow in India, Holmes said that they are “quite comfortable” with working on a franchise relationship and has been successful world over. However, he informed that Wyndham will start doing managing hotels in India market in the next 12 to 18 month’s time.
Wyndham Hotel Group currently has 25 operating hotels in India with 2600 hotel rooms. 3300+ rooms are under-construction in the upcoming 30 properties in the next 3 years.
