Dive Brief:

• Wyndham Hotels & Resorts announced Tuesday the signing of multiple development deals that will add 60 new hotels to its Echo Suites Extended Stay by Wyndham brand. The multiunit deals will expand the brand’s U.S. presence in Alabama, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. 
• Wyndham also signed a multiunit deal with MasterBUILT Hotels to develop the brand’s first hotels in Canada. The hotel company has worked with the developer before on more than two dozen Microtel by Wyndham hotels across Canada. 
• The 60-hotel expansion brings Echo Suites’ global pipeline to approximately 260 hotels, or 33,000 rooms. The brand is rapidly expanding to keep up with heating competition in the extended stay space from other major chains, including Marriott, Hilton and Choice.

Dive Insight:

Echo Suites, an economy brand, offers developers a purpose-built, new-construction 124-room prototype situated on no less than 2 acres of land. The guest rooms average 300 square feet and consist of one- and two-queen studio suites with kitchens, similar to other extended stay models on the market. The property also features limited public amenity space. 

When the brand launched in November, it had a total 120 hotels in the pipeline. That number leapt to 200 by March, and now, another 60 have been added with the recent development deals. While Wyndham declined to name the developers involved in the domestic deals, the company’s chief development officer, Chip Ohlsson, said the brand has “seen unprecedented interest from among the industry's most-successful extended stay developers.” 

Wyndham is under construction on multiple Echo Suites hotels in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina. According to data from Lodging Econometrics, as of Q1, Echo Suites had 16 projects underway, slated to break ground by year-end or in the early planning stages. The company expects to have 100 hotels open within the next five years. 

Despite increasing competition in the space, developer MasterBUILT sees Wyndham’s Echo Suites brand as an extended stay leader. 

“From day one, Wyndham made a point of seeking the input of experienced developers and then [acting] on their insights,” MasterBUILT President and CEO David Donaldson said in a statement. “The result is a brand that resonates as strongly with hotel developers as it will with guests. While other brands have since tried to tap into and mirror ECHO Suites' success — Wyndham, with its unmatched scale, owner-first approach and industry-leading support — continues to lead the pack.” 

The Echo Suites brand preceded others in the space like Marriott’s midscale brand Project MidX Studios and Hilton’s lower-midscale brand Project H3, both of which launched in recent months. 

Project MidX Studios — which will also be available in Canada — was built with developers in mind as well, Marriott Global Development Officer for the U.S. and Canada Noah Silverman previously told Hotel Dive. With 124 studios, — the same number as the Echo Suites prototype — Project MidX Studios will be Marriott’s most affordable cost-per-room product in the U.S. and Canada for developers to build, and 76% of the hotel’s square footage is expected to generate revenue for the owner. 

A brand in the lower-tier extended stay category — same as Echo Suites — is Choice’s WoodSpring Suites, which has 114 projects, or 13,637 rooms, in the pipeline this year. A more seasoned extended stay brand, WoodSpring Suites has also experienced significant growth this year.