Skift Travel News Blog

Hyatt gave details on Wednesday about the first locations for Hyatt Studios, a brand it unveiled in April. The hotel operator will open the first Hyatt Studios just outside of Mobile, Alabama, and Marysville, California — targeting spots where its other brands aren’t present.

“We’ve learned that when Hyatt guests stay with a competing brand, they appear to do so for one of two reasons: the absence of a Hyatt hotel within five miles or the choice to stay at a lower chain scale,” said Dan Hansen, global head of Hyatt Studios. “By enabling guests to choose a Hyatt hotel in new markets, we grow brand loyalty without intra-brand competition and present more white-space options to developers.”

The company’s “upper-midscale” extended stay brand anticipates opening its first new-build property late next year.

In the port city of Mobile, Hyatt is franchising the brand to 3H Group, founded by Hiren Desai. The port city has tourism, manufacturing, aerospace, and the corporate offices of retailers — all likely to have workers and visitors making multi-day stays and preferring non-budget lodging.

In downtown Marysville, Hyatt founded a franchisee in Presidio Hotel Development. The spot isn’t far from the capital of California, Sacramento.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts said on Tuesday it had signed 60 more hotels for its Echo Suites Extended Stay by Wyndham brand in the U.S. and Canada.

That brings the extended-stay brand’s pipeline to 265 hotels, with about 33,000 rooms. It’s the fastest-growing brand in Wyndham’s development pipeline.

The growth is remarkable. Wyndham only formally announced the brand last November, and it doesn’t expect to have its first Echo Suites hotel open until 2024. Few other brands introduced in the past few years have gained such rapid traction with developers.

Wyndham partly credits its success to having worked closely with developers when inventing its prototype — obtaining earlier design buy-in than has been customary. The franchisor also has a commercial strategy of signing multi-unit deals with veteran developers, such as MasterBUILT Hotels in Canada.

“From day one, Wyndham made a point of seeking the input of experienced developers and then actioning on their insights,” said David Donaldson, president and CEO, MasterBUILT Hotels.

For context, read: Why Every Hotel Company Wants an Extended Stay Brand Now and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts’ Brands, Explained.

Marriott International revealed on Monday its full-year totals for hotel development in 2022. The most notable figures highlighted a further push by the world’s largest hotelier into the luxury and extended-stay segments.

The operator of brands such as Ritz Carlton, Bvlgari Hotels, W, and Edition last year signed deals to develop 42 luxury hotels — a company record — adding to its nearly 500 open luxury properties. These luxury hotels represent nearly 8,000 rooms.

Growth in Extended Stay

Marriott also had continued momentum at the lower end of the spectrum in 2022, which represents most of the nearly 8,300 properties it had open worldwide as of late December.

In 2022, the company’s extended stay brands — Residence Inn by Marriott, Element by Westin, and TownePlace Suites by Marriott brands — made up a record 30 percent of the company’s signings.

Interest in extended stay from developers is partly driven by consumers seeking more space, “driven by the blending of work and leisure trips,” Marriott executives said.

“The select service and extended stay segments continue to generate significant growth for the company, particularly in the U.S. and Canada,” said Noah Silverman, global development officer, U.S. & Canada, at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) in Los Angeles.

In 2023, the company will particularly look at “underserved secondary and tertiary markets” for additional extended-stay growth, Silverman said.

Overall, last year was a robust year for Marriott’s pipeline expansion. It signed 726 management and franchise agreements, representing nearly 108,000 rooms. About 20 percent of these deals were conversions rather than new development.

Marriott joins other hotel companies in having a backlog of getting signed hotels built open. Last year, the company only added 394 properties, representing roughly 65,000 rooms, growing its worldwide network by 4.4 percent. But given the enormous size of its pipeline, that rollout could’ve been faster if key inputs for construction and financing hadn’t been disrupted by labor dislocations and rising interest rates.

For more context, see how the great merging between people’s work and personal lives has led Blended Travel to Come of Age, one of Skift’s Megatrends for 2023.

For context on the consumer dynamic driving the boom in luxury, see Skift’s 2023 Megatrend “A New Super Luxury Goes a Step Further.”

BWH Hotel Group debuted on Monday its 19th brand — Home by BWH — in the midscale extended-stay segment. It’s available for developers for new construction at the start and for conversions of existing properties over time.

“The extended-stay segment has been outperforming the industry, is driving 25 percent higher revenue than in 2019, and it is showing no signs of slowing down,” said Brad LeBlanc, senior vice president and chief development officer, BWH Hotel Group.

Best Western’s brands — Executive Residency by Best Western and SureStay Studio by Best Western — cover a couple segments of the extended-stay market. But the company wanted to offer developers and customers an extra brand with different price points and a more optional, flexible approach to amenities.

“We know that extended-stay is an important market segment and there is tremendous demand for more options in this category,” said Larry Cuculic, president and CEO.

The Phoenix-based company revealed a prototype for the new brand at a convention in Cleveland. It said that the brand had a “strong pipeline,” but it didn’t specify how many partners had signed up for the brand yet.

Privately held BWH Hotel Group has more than 4,000 hotels, with hundreds more in development, across three companies: Best Western Hotels & Resorts, WorldHotels Collection, and SureStay Hotel Group.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has been teasing since March its plans to debut an economy extended-stay brand, apparently named Echo. On Wednesday, Sandpiper Hospitality filed plans to build what will likely be the first Echo hotel in western Henrico, Virginia, according to a news report.

“Plans show the Echo hotel would reach four stories and include 124 rooms and 133 parking spaces,” reported Richmond BizSense. “HG Design Studio is listed as the project’s landscape architect.”

The site is at 9940 Independence Park Drive. Intriguingly, the rendering submitted by Sandpiper Hospitality showed the name of the hotel being Echo. Until now, the project had been referred to by Wyndham as Project Economy Hotel Opportunity.

Wyndham executives said earlier last month they had deals with developers to roll out 72 projects, with a goal of 300 hotels over the next decade.