Wyndham Hotels Emphasizes Boosting Rates Instead of Occupancy
Photo Caption: La Quinta Inn & Suites and Hawthorn Suites by Wyndam, opened in June in Pflugerville, Texas. Source: Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.
Skift Take
Hoteliers used to obsess about putting "heads in beds." But Wyndham instead focuses on charging the highest hotel prices possible, or what we call a focus on "rates and dates." So far, in 2022, Wyndham's approach has paid off.
If you tried to build a hotel company best suited for 2022, you would probably build something like Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. The company has a tilt toward U.S. leisure travelers in "drive to" destinations. It also has more select-service hotels, which have lower labor needs, than its five largest rivals. These traits have proven well matched to today's market, where business and international travel hasn't recovered and labor issues are plentiful.
Yet Wyndham also has another ingredient in its recipe that has been less appreciated. It has abandoned the classic hotelier's mindset of trying to fill up as many rooms as possible, even if discounting is required. The Parsippany, NJ-based company has instead adopted a modern hotelier's strategy of charging the highest rates the market can bear — even if that means leaving some rooms vacant.
Pushing rates hard helped drive Wyndham's strong second-quarter earnings results, reported on Wednesday. The company gene
