REPORT FROM THE U.S.—Wyndham Worldwide Corporation is seeing developer interest pick up for its Microtel brand, the company’s CFO said recently.
There are 310 Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham properties open globally comprising more than 22,000 rooms; the company declined to disclose pipeline numbers for the brand.
“We plan to grow it big. We’re very happy with it,” executive VP of international operations and CFO Robert Loewen said during a telephone interview.
Part of the reason for the interest is because developers are able to find financing, Loewen said. The properties are new construction only, Gus Stamoutsos, Wyndham Hotel Group’s executive VP of development, wrote in an email.
Developers largely need only to find $2 million in financing to push a project through to completion, Loewen said.
“There is still (financing) being done by local banks … Projects are gaining traction, though certainly not at the rates it was before” the downturn, he said.
Also contributing to the increased developer interest in the brand is Microtel’s business model, Loewen said.
“It’s fixed on a real small (parcel of land),” he said. “It’s a box that works for developers.”
As for future development, Stamoutsos said Wyndham will focus mostly on the United States, noting growth opportunities in “virtually all regions of the country.”
“Canada is another significant growth opportunity, and we expect to open an additional 75 hotels in the country over the next 25 years as part of a master development deal that we signed in 2011,” Stamoutsos said. “Outside of the U.S. and Canada, we are interested in developing the brand in Asia/Pacific and Latin America.”
Contact:
Wyndham Hotel Group
Phone: 973-753-6000