Wyndham’s New Brand Is Called Echo Suites Extended Stay 

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts appeared to have so far executed a well-run roll-out of its 24th brand, given that developers have signed up to build 120 of them in the U.S. in the first year. Yet the Tuesday reveal of the brand’s name, Echo Suites Extended Stay by Wyndham, wasn’t much of a surprise. The company had been calling it Project Echo for six months, and reporters dug up filings in August that showed the brand would be called Echo.

The world’s largest hotel franchising company seemed to be seeing early benefits from having worked closely with developers when creating its prototype — obtaining much earlier design buy-in than has been customary with most chains in hotel development.

Wyndham said that Echo Suites is already the fastest-growing brand in its development pipeline. In September developer Gulf Coast Hotel Management broke ground for the first Echo hotel in Plano, Texas. On Tuesday, developer Sandpiper Hospitality was breaking ground on its second and third hotels in Sterling, Virginia, and Richmond, Virginia.

Each of the new build hotels has 124 rooms on just two acres of land. Guest rooms come in “singles” and “two-queen studios” that together average 300 square feet to max out the rentable land. Many parts of the facility are designed to minimize labor needs, such as letting guests access the property and rooms without needing a round-the-clock front desk. Pricing will be set for an “economy extended stay” category, in a likely range of about $50 to $55 for revenue per available room, executives have said.

Extended-stay has become a popular category in recent years. It caters to travelers staying a week to a few months, such as traveling nurses and construction workers. Developers like the segment because it typically performs well during economic booms and busts alike, partly thanks to a U.S. crisis in the supply of housing.

Extended-stay hotel average daily rates in the U.S. increased 12 percent in September 2022 compared to the same month a year earlier, according to data reported on Monday by The Highland Group, a consultancy. However, economy and mid-price extended-stay segments reported their smallest gains in the monthly average daily rate in a year-and-a-half.

The first Echo Suites are slated to open in 2023.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Explained

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