Wyndham Hotel group set to launch its new brand Wyndham Garden

Eyeing a slice of India’s growing mid-market hotel pie, global hospitality company Wyndham Hotel Group is set to launch its new brand Wyndham Garden as per a report.

“We will be looking at introducing mid-market full-service brand Wyndham Garden in the Indian market. We want to launch it in the next six-eight months,” Deepika Arora, Regional Vice President-Eurasia, Wyndham Hotel Group, said.

In India, the group currently has brands such as Ramada Plaza, Howard Johnson’s, Days, Ramada Encore, out of its 16 brands globally. “India is growing towards mid-market so Wyndham Garden is a great offering in that respect.

“It is a typical business or a leisure destination hotel. It is similar to Ramada but with a different look and feel. It will work well in a metro or leisure destination,” she added.

The company has 3,000 keys across 26 hotels in India and 5,000 keys across 41 hotels under construction. About 60 per cent of its new openings are in tier II cities and the rest in tier I.

On whether the company is looking to launch any other brands here, she said: “We would rather push existing brands Howard Johnson and Days brands. Ramada Encore is a cookie-cutter brand which we would rather promote than getting another brand and then work on its promotion.”

The company, which has expanded in India using the franchise model, unlike other global players which have grown through management contracts, is now also looking at the latter option.

“We’ve done fairly well in the franchise model. We have grown from eight hotels to 26 in the last five years. Today, we are in a position where we are far more equipped to offer a management solution to a hotel owner compared to six years ago,” she said.

While the hotels currently in the pipeline will continue to be in the franchise model, the company is looking at offering management contracts too.

“We will look at tier I markets or a good leisure destination for the management contact model,” Arora added.

Globally, the hospitality company is working on the transformation of its brand image in order to make it customer-friendly. The brand will revisit the look and feel of properties as well as taglines across all Wyndham brands.

Keys Hotels to grow via the franchise model, management deals

Keys Hotels is staying away from building its own hotels and has decided to expand through franchises and management contracts to shield itself in a slow market. Having invested in seven hotels, the chain has now set its sights on smart cities such as Visakhapatnam, Calicut and Jaipur to grow through franchises and management contracts with almost 70 new hotels planned in the next 12 months.

Vikas Chadha, Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer, Keys Hotels, said: “Looking at the current market, we will now be expanding mainly through our budget and mid-market brands like Keys and Keys Lite. We will continue to take over unbranded properties and convert them under our brand as long as we get the right location mostly in tier II markets where there is lack of branded hotels.”

In fact, most of its added hotels would be in the budget and mid segment rather than its premium brand of Keys Prima. “The majority of our hotels would be under the Keys Lite brand in the budget segment with only a couple of them under Keys Prima since it is not easy to find luxury properties which can get converted,’’ he added.

With 20 properties and 1,800 rooms across brands like Keys (mid market), Keys Lite (budget) and Keys Prima (upper mid market), the hospitality company has been mainly catering to the business and corporate sector.

“Almost 70 per cent of our revenues come from the corporates to whom we also sell directly and also through OTAs,’’ he added. Becoming asset-light through franchises and management contracts is also expected to help the company reap profits.

Keys Hotels is promoted by Berggruen Holdings, a New York-headquartered proprietary fund, and has been present in India since 2006. “The fund was set up specifically for entering the Indian market under the Keys brand and has already invested $100 million in India,’’ added Chadha.