HM Q&A: GEOFF BALLOTTI, WYNDHAM

Winning ways

Wyndham Hotels and Resorts President and CEO, GEOFF BALLOTTI , sat down with JAMES WILKINSON in Parsippany, New Jersey, for an exclusive chat about key travel trends, international growth and his outlook for the year ahead.

Geoff, thanks so much for your time. It’s an exciting time for travel across the world. How’s everything with Wyndham at the moment?

We have seen record leisure demand, it’s been spectacular. We had record third quarter earnings on so many different fronts. We saw RevPAR back at 110% of what it was in 2019 and a really strong fourth quarter with the record leisure demand that’s out there.

A lot of markets around the world are growing for you – Asia is opening up, it’s one of your biggest markets – but the Americas has just been phenomenal for you.

And Asia Pacific has been as well. Here in the United States, we had 24% growth in our new development, construction and overall pipeline, which was great to see, but really strong growth in each of our international regions too. And we are really pleased to see the continued growth across Asia and the Pacific.

Geoff Ballotti, Wyndham

In Asia, your resort business has grown tenfold in the past three or four years and now, with travellers starting to come back, your resorts are getting really busy again.

Very busy. You want to be planning your vacation early. There are a lot of reasons for that. There are a lot of folks that haven’t used their vacation time and are now trying to get space and get away. What has really changed throughout all of this is consumers rating travel as the number one experience that they want to get out and pursue – that’s what is driving that.

Our extended stay demand is really off the charts.

-Geoff Ballotti, Wyndham

When it comes to hot brands, you’ve got a whole portfolio you’re growing in the extended stay economy market, you’re also getting great demand in the luxury segment. You’re hitting both ends, right?

Wyndham is reporting high demand for leisure travel

We are. Our extended stay demand is really off the charts, it has been for years leading up to the pandemic and really took off throughout the pandemic. We launched our 24th brand this quarter, Echo Suites by Wyndham, and developer demand [is very strong].

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We said by the end of the year we’d have 100 contracts awarded and we announced on our quarterly call that we’ve already achieved that – we’re at 120. When it comes to the business portion of our demand, infrastructure work is driving that, and we think that’s going to be the case for a long, long time.

You’re seeing a lot of growth in the bleisure segment too as business travel starts to return.

Thursday night and Sunday night are our fastest growing occupancy nights which is, to your point, the flexibility of having hybrid work arrangements and offices allowing workers to work on a Monday or a Friday from somewhere else is certainly what’s driving that.

There’s always an excuse for travel, whether it’s a wedding, a family catch up, a reunion – how much of that is still fuelling demand for you?

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We’re seeing demand Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday nights. We’re seeing leisure demand throughout the week; weekends have been – throughout the summer months – off the chart. Here we are now in what is ordinarily a time where occupancy begins to trail off because of seasonal slowdowns, and we’re not seeing that to the degree that we saw pre COVID. It’s that type of travel throughout the week that we don’t see any signs of slowing down.

Before you go, what’s your general outlook for 2023? How are you feeling about the year ahead?

We’re feeling very good. A really strong fourth quarter and we’re seeing no signs of any slowdown in demand.