If you’re Wyndham Worldwide, and you want a bigger presence in Spain and in the select-service midscale market, what do you do? For Wyndham, the answer is to acquire a brand that fills both holes.
Wyndham is in the brand acquisition and growth business, according to Wyndham Hotel Group president and CEO Eric Danziger, and its recent addition of Sol Meliá Hotels & Resorts’ Tryp brand gives the company an immediate foothold in Spain and a few other key European destinations.
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“It’s a very impactful hotel company over there,” Danziger said in an interview with Hotel & Motel Management. “It’s complementary to what we have; it’s complementary to where we are. We’re not heavy in Spain, they are, and what a wonderful way to marry us up.”
Wyndham and Sol Meliá have had a good relationship for several years, according to Danziger, and that closeness helped lead to an eventual deal. The actual talks about acquiring Tryp started back in September and continued until an agreement was reached in the early hours of June 7.
“It was about the period of time it takes to have a baby,” Danziger said.
After nine months, Wyndham finalized acquisition of 91 Tryp hotels, which will now go by the name Tryp by Wyndham. The deal isn’t officially completed, so no concrete plans have developed, but Danziger looks to take this mainly European brand and grow it in many other markets.
“The world is a big place,” he said. “There are no specific markets [we are targeting], you can just see it as a global brand. It’s a very desirable urban product; it’s a desirable suburban product—probably not so aggressive in a tertiary market. So if you believe you are urban and suburban, and there’s only 91 of them … I think there’s enormous opportunity.”
Wyndham’s umbrella now covers 12 different brands, and the company has every intention to continue adding to that number as long as the brands accompany and complement the existing portfolio.
“I don’t ‘expect’ to see some new brands, but I should hope to see more brands,” Danziger said. “That’s our business. We look to acquire brands and give the full support of our company if the brands have the opportunity to tuck into what we do and add to the customer base.”