Wyndham CDO on opportunities, incentives and Echo Suites

LAS VEGAS — When asked what Wyndham owners are telling him, Amit Sripathi said they are understandably concerned with the general uncertainty and what’s next. But he also said many are looking at this time as an opportunity.

“We have some experienced hotel owners and they’ve been through [many] cycles,” said Sripathi, chief development officer for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. “Many of the seasoned owners are actually sharpening their pencils to see if you have some distressed opportunities that they can take advantage because supply is at a historic low,” he said.

Sripathi, who spoke to Hotel Investment Today at Wyndham’s 2025 global conference in Las Vegas, was named CDO a year ago. He oversees all the company’s brands across North America and spent most of his career in investment banking, on the advisory and capital market side, covering hospitality real estate. Sripathi said there is a distinction between owners with access to capital and those without.

“If you ask some of the owners, this is a great time to find some assets,” he said, noting the general sentiment at the Urban Land Institute’s spring meeting in Denver last week was “there’s uncertainty, but we think there’s a tremendous opportunity ahead of us.”

There’s still a lot of opportunity [in economy], because there are a lot of independent hotel owners. Believe it or not, when there’s times of uncertainty, we actually perform really well, because both guests and owners tend to gravitate towards a known commodity.

Amit Sripathi

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When asked about the biggest incentives for potential Wyndham owners right now, Sripathi said the platform is the biggest draw.

“Most owners do business with us because they know and like us,” he said. “What our team sells is the value proposition. Of course, incentives are there, whether it be key money or the technology we offer when you have owners who are mindful, especially in this environment, of costs and their P&L. Our tech costs are the lowest.”

It’s those lower cost, Sripathi said, which is often the biggest selling point in courting owners.

“Even if a competitor may be offering, let’s say, slightly more key money than us… you’re going to sign this franchise agreement. That’s 15-20 years. With key money, you get a portion, but what are your operational costs? How much are you paying in fees?” he said.

Those things matter in this type of uncertain environment, Sripathi said.

“We occasionally do give key money. We give fee ramp-ups, sometimes a combination. But anytime we do give key money, it’s usually because we’re targeting an opportunity. One, there has to be a return for us. But two, we’re giving that where it makes sense for us to do that.”

Development opportunities

Wyndham has been pushing a lot of development outside of its signature economy brands. However, Sripathi said that doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of development plays in the economy segment. 

“There’s still a lot of opportunity because there are a lot of independent hotel owners,” he said. “Believe it or not, when there’s times of uncertainty, we actually perform really well because both guests and owners tend to gravitate towards a known commodity.”

Sripathi has a lot of all-inclusive experience in the Caribbean and said there’s been a huge uptick in awareness for all-inclusive, especially post-COVID.

“For all-inclusive, there’s still a lot of opportunity there. I was just talking to a couple of Dominican Republic investors who want to build,” he said.

Originally in the Caribbean, the opportunities were more tourism-driven and focused on inbound travel. That’s changing, Sripathi said.

“The countries, they’re trying to diversify, they’re trying to get their own local demand generators and they might become exporters. So, there is a significant opportunity for select-service products,” he said, noting a recent development deal for Super 8 hotels in the Dominican Republic.

“They like American brands, and they like well-recognized brands.”

There are plenty of Caribbean opportunities for business travelers, Sripathi said.

“If you’re flying in to do business right by the airport, you need a hotel,” he said. “Not everyone wants to drive an hour and a half to Riviera Maya. You want to do business and then you want to fly out [and stay at] good quality, trusted names there.”

Echo Suites update

Wyndham is coming up on a year of its first Echo Suites extended-stay brand opening. When Sripathi was asked about the biggest surprises in the first year, he mentioned a good one.

“We bring in new developers to tour the property, and they all say, ‘This is not an economy product. This looks a lot nicer than economy,’” he said. “We’ll give ourselves a pat on the back for that because it was designed for STR classifications as economy, but it punches above its weight.”

That’s allowing developers, even if they have competing extended-stay brands nearby, to charge a little bit more in rate, Sripathi said. 

“The way we designed that product was that there’s no pride of ownership. We took some very sophisticated and experienced extended-stay owners who played in this space… and we asked, ‘If you had to do it all over again, how would you do it?’”

Editor's note: Wyndham paid for some of the expenses for the reporter's trip to this conference, but it did not influence coverage of this event or future coverage about the company.