Hotelier Middle East has been fortunate enough to interview CEO and president of Wyndham Hotel Group Eric Danziger on a number of occasions.
His love of the Middle East and his position as the head of “the world’s largest hotel company” always suggested the hospitality giant could do a great deal in terms of expansion in the region.
But up until recently, the amount of properties in the Middle East for a company of its size was in all fairness modest.
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That is all changing, and the promise of a focus on the Middle East that Danziger emphasised in previous years is coming into fruition with a raft of new properties.
Two months ago, the company announced the first Wyndham Grand and the first Planet Hollywood Hotel for the region — both in Doha — while some of the company’s 15 brands will also be making debuts in the near future (see the map on pages 80-81).
Yet as unrest in pockets of the Middle East refuses to settle and keeps the region in the spotlight of the world’s travellers for all the wrong reasons, does Danziger feel his focus was ill placed?
“Not at all,” he enthuses, “the United States had a revolution 200 years ago and some countries are born from change.”
And while Danziger stresses he doesn’t have a political view on the unrest, he maintains that “some countries like Egypt may end up being greater, better business opportunities over the long term because of what’s gone on”.
He adds that it is also important to get across the message to consumers that the Middle East is a “big place” and not one state with a lot of cities in it.
“I come [to the Middle East] three or four times a year, it’s that important by the way — each time I come I get more enthusiastic about what’s next and how we can continue to add to that,” he explains.
You certainly get the sense that Danziger is still incredibly excited by the opportunities he sees for Wyndham in the region and is pleased to be focusing on announcements of done deals, rather than discussing potential partnerships.
“I said two years ago that we were deeply committed to the area and you know it takes a while to get inertia going and activity — we’re particularly excited about the whole Gulf,” he says.
There is an acknowledgment that due to the unrest there are “opportunities today, which make us less excited about a couple of places currently”, although he feels in the long term these countries will be fine.
“But in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and some of the other Emirates there are opportunities. In Doha we have a Ramada Encore, we are converting a fabulous hotel to a Wyndham Grand, we announced a Planet Hollywood — so we have a great and growing interest in bringing our brands out here.
The company has a couple of Howard Johnsons coming to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We have 15 brands so we’ve only just begun our expansion into the Middle East really.”
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