Nearly two years after launching extended stay brand Echo Suites, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has opened its first hotel in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Nearby infrastructure projects and population growth are poised to generate long-term demand, making it a highly desirable inaugural location for the extended stay brand, Wyndham detailed in a Thursday release.
“Historic infrastructure investments” across the U.S. are expected to drive a multibillion-dollar room revenue opportunity for Wyndham franchisees, the company said. Wyndham is among a slew of competitors with significant growth plans in what it calls a “white-hot” extended stay segment.
Hotel Dive chatted with Jim Darter, CEO of hotel management company Sandpiper Hospitality, which is managing the inaugural Echo Suites, about what sets the brand apart.
The first Echo Suites
Echo Suites Spartanburg features the extended stay brand’s purpose-built, new-construction, 124-room prototype. Richmond, Virginia-based Sandpiper Hospitality will manage the hotel for property owner Mitch Cox Companies, the management company announced on LinkedIn.
Rooms at the hotel consist of single- and two-queen studio suites with kitchens. The property also features “efficiently-designed public spaces,” including 24-hour guest laundry, meant to help limit labor needs, according to Wyndham.
Beyond the “value and the efficiency of the rooms,” one thing that sets the property apart is its technology, including mobile check-in and digital keys, Darter told Hotel Dive.
“The technology for a hotel that's in this [chain] scale is phenomenal, and it's what many guests are used to getting at full-service, larger hotels,” Darter said, adding that the on-property tech is “going to set us apart against some competition that isn't very technologically advanced.”
Value opportunities for franchisees
Comprising 50,000 square feet, the Echo Suites prototype is designed to offer 79% of revenue-generating square footage, Wyndham said.
Another revenue opportunity for Wyndham franchisees — to the tune of $3.3 billion nationwide — lies in ongoing infrastructure projects driving significant demand for extended stay hotels, Wyndham said. The historic infrastructure spending is a result of the Biden Administration’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, passed in 2021.
The bill has led to projects that are “creating a tailwind for [...] the everyday business traveler, particularly construction and other trade workers, many of whom are in need of long-term accommodations as they travel to job sites across the country,” according to Wyndham.
“Where you see construction starts, you're likely to see really high occupancies in extended stay,” Darter said, adding that the segment will “continue to see very long lengths of stay, very high profit margins — the highest in the industry — and it's going to continue to be a very lucrative space to be in.”
Wyndham’s growth plans
To cater to strong demand from construction workers, as well as others like traveling nurses and digital nomads, Wyndham plans to open additional Echo Suites locations in Texas and Virginia this year. The brand has a growing development pipeline of nearly 270 hotels, or more than 33,000 rooms, across the U.S. and Canada.
To spearhead the planned growth, Wyndham has appointed Mandeep Singh as vice president of extended stay operations. With 20 years of industry experience under his belt, Mandeep will oversee Wyndham’s portfolio of extended-stay brands, focusing on Echo Suites and the upscale Waterwalk Extended Stay by Wyndham brand, which the company acquired in April.
Darter told Hotel Dive that a Sandpiper affiliate has several other Echo Suites projects under contract in Arizona and Utah — markets specifically seeing big infrastructure projects. “We've got big plans for Echo,” he said.
Competition heats up
Other hotel players are growing in the space too, including Choice Hotels International, which continues to fortify its extended stay portfolio with property openings and new development deals. And Marriott International is building its midscale extended stay brand StudioRes, which launched last year.
Smaller extended stay brand LivAway Suites is also plotting a rapid expansion this year.
In the first quarter of 2024, extended stay development dominated the U.S. hotel construction pipeline, according to Lodging Econometrics.
