Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is rapidly expanding its presence in the Middle East and Africa, announcing the signing of three new hotels with Ithra, an investment arm of the Dubai government, located on the Deira waterfront area.

Unveiling details of the upcoming properties, Panos Loupasis, vice president development Middle East, Eurasia and Africa, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, said: "The new hotels will include a new Wyndham and the UAE's first Days Inn and Super 8 branded hotels. The properties are expected to open between 2020 and 2021."

Wyndham currently has 9,200 hotels under 20 brands in more than 80 countries; ten of these brands are presently in the Middle East and Africa with 57 hotels representing roughly 11,000 rooms. The Ramada brand is the most predominant in this region, accounting for 32 of the 57 hotels, Loupasis noted.

"The strategy when we entered this market was to enter with our core brand, and since then, we have introduced other brands like the two upper midscale Tryp by Wyndham in Dubai (Barsha Heights) and Wyndham Garden Inn in Manama Bahrain – both of these are the largest of these brands in the world," he said.
 
Wyndham also recently acquired the La Quinta brand – which has a little more than 900 properties and 900,000 rooms. "The plan is to bring this brand internationally as most of these are only in North America," Loupasis said.

The Wyndham brand recently underwent a major refresh, announcing the decision to add the Wyndham suffix to all brands. "We did research that found that 45 per cent of our clients felt more comfortable if they stayed in a hotel that is endorsed by the mother company. All brands now carry the 'by Wyndham' suffix," he said.

Addressing the topic of changing trends in the region, Loupasis said: "There are two big gaps -international branded three-star hotels and international extended-stay products. The UAE has a good introduction to internationally branded three-star, but it is not prevalent in the other GCC countries."

"In the UAE, for example, in 2017, only 20 per cent of the rooms fell under the one-, two- and three-star categories, meaning the market is undersupplied in these categories. This comes as a great opportunity for us as we predominantly operate in the economy sector," he noted.

Wyndham Hotels has another 21 properties under development in the MEA region, which will see the addition of another 4,000 rooms. - TradeArabia News Service