Wyndham Worldwide is the global leader for the most hotels in a single hotel chain and hotel loyalty program with nearly 8,000 hotels worldwide. Marriott can make the claim for largest hotel chain in the world by hotel rooms at 1.15 million in nearly 6,000 hotels compared to slightly over 700,000 rooms for Wyndham.
Wyndham has a reputation for several hotel brands in the low end ‘Economy’ market segment in the STR Chain Scale 2016 hotel market segments. There are 13 hotel brands in Wyndham Hotel Group, including the Super 8 super-brand with 2,700 hotels. Best Western, Holiday Inn Express, and Hampton Inn are the only other major hotel loyalty program hotel brands with over 2,000 hotels worldwide. Days Inn is the other heavyweight brand of Wyndham with 1,800 hotels.
Days Inn and Super 8 combined are 4,500 hotels, approaching the global hotel size of Hilton, InterContinental and Marriott (without Starwood brands). Super 8 and Days Inn are the backbone of Wyndham and both brands are firmly in the Economy market segment.
Howard Johnson 377 hotels, Travelodge 404 hotels, Knights Inn 381 hotels and Microtel 334 hotels round out Wyndham’s economy segment hotel brands with another 1,500 hotels. Microtel tends to be the best rated of these economy brands. Important to note that Travelodge has a different market segment as Midscale in Australia.
6 of 13 Wyndham Hotel Group brands are economy segment hotels numbering 6,000 properties worldwide in Super 8, Days Inn, Travelodge, Knights Inn, Howard Johnson and Microtel. There are more than 1,800 Super 8 hotels in North America. This year is supposedly a design style transformation year for the brand. Super 8 hotels in China are a fast growing market.
There are still 2,000 other Wyndham branded hotels in worldwide locations in 7 Wyndham brands, primarily in the next tier ‘Midscale’ hotel market segment.
STR Hotel market segment designations: Luxury, Upper Upscale, Upscale, Upper Midscale, Midscale and Economy are created based on average daily rate for the hotel brands.
- Luxury
- Upper Upscale
- Upscale
- Upper Midscale
- Midscale
- Economy
Wyndham’s Midscale hotel brands with more than 1,500 hotels are Baymont Inns & Suites 424 hotels, Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham 107 hotels, Ramada Hotels 842 hotels and Wingate by Wyndham 148 hotels. Ramada is the key player, along with Wyndham Hotels and Resorts for international properties. In my experience, Ramada hotels outside the USA are more upscale than the typical USA Ramada hotel.
Tryp by Wyndham 113 hotels is an Upper Midscale brand. There are also Ramada Plaza hotels and Days Hotels listed by STR as Upper Midscale. Hotel brands like Marriott’s Fairfield Inn, IHG Holiday Inn and Carlson Rezidor Park Inn are comparable upper midscale brands. I have seen Days Hotels in Savannah and London.
IHG Candlewood Suites and Choice Quality Inn are two other hotel chains with a midscale market segment hotel brand. Hilton, Starwood, Marriott and Hyatt do not have any hotel brands listed as Economy or Midscale. Average room rates by hotel brand are significantly higher for these more upscale hotel chains
Wyndham Vacation Resorts with 216 properties are the only Upscale brand in the chain in the market segment with brands like Hyatt Place and Hyatt House, AC Hotels, Aloft, Four Points, Hilton Garden Inn, Hotel Indigo and Radisson.
Wyndham Hotel Group peaks out at Upper Upscale hotel market segment with Wyndham Hotels & Resorts with 226 hotels worldwide. These hotels are the premier brand and international presence of Wyndham in many cities, along with international Ramada Hotels. Dolce Hotels 22 hotels are a small boutique-type chain of hotels Wyndham Acquired in early 2015. These hotels cater to corporate meetings and functions, but also with lodging available for regular guests, often at very reasonable rates when the hotel is not booked for events.
The overall lower market segment proportion of 250 upper upscale hotels out of 8,000 hotels in Wyndham’s 13 hotel brands is a good reason for a dismissive attitude to Wyndham Worldwide among miles & points collectors. For me, the presence of only a few hundred hotels around the world, primarily in Ramada, Tryp and Wyndham hotel brands offers Wyndham Rewards hotel loyalty program potential. The low cost of GoFast reward nights at 3,000 points + copay from $25 to $100 has been a good deal in some places I travel for hotel rate discounts. Cities like Amsterdam and Salzburg, Austria gave me nice Ramada rooms at far lower cost than other lodging options.
Unfortunately, the copay for Wyndham Resorts is over $100 per night for many hotels. Ramada internationally is where I primarily find good value hotel rate discounts. I had a hotel reward stay booked last month for Wyndham Grand Bad Reichenhall, Germany for 3,000 points + 29 EUR that I ended up needing to cancel when I stayed longer in Slovakia. That was a great rate for an upper upscale hotel.
Wyndham could use an infusion of higher category hotel brands, which is why the chain’s name comes up in merger and acquisition news. Starwood has three brands in the Upper Upscale hotel segment: Le Meridien, Sheraton, Westin. Most of the flagship brands of the major chains Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt Regency are upper upscale hotel brands. Wyndham could benefit from a chain like Hyatt Hotels.
Average room rates for hotel chain brands in Marriott-Starwood, Hilton and IHG are noticeably higher than average room rates for Wyndham brands. The rate difference and hotel market segments of brands in Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott-Starwood displays an upscale market range among the world’s largest hotel chains and commensurately higher room rates. Wyndham and Choice Hotels fill the niche for lower market segment hotel brands with far lower average daily rates.
Reward night rates using hotel points tend to be higher priced with Wyndham Rewards and Choice Privileges in the USA compared to high value I find redeeming hotel points at international hotels. I rarely pay to stay at Wyndham brand hotels in the USA. The value I find with Wyndham Rewards are regional opportunities for discount hotel rates in places like Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Romania and dozens of other countries around the world using the hotel loyalty program GoFast and GoFree rewards. Wyndham is rarely my first choice for hotel stays, but I leave my options open by maintaining a Wyndham Rewards points balance to take advantage of Wyndham hotel discounts in some places.
Wyndham Hotel Group
Brand Hotels Count, Average Daily Rate and Occupancy
The rate for Wyndham Hotels and Resorts at $106 per night is less than the average daily rate for Marriott’s Fairfield Inn ($110 Jan-June 2016), IHG Holiday Inn ($111 in Americans Jan-Jun 2016), and Hampton Inn by Hilton $120.
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