Bringing the family together
Wyndham Worldwide has a complex history of takeovers, splits, mergers and acquisitions.
When Danziger took over the Wyndham Hotel Group in 2008, he inherited a veritable mixed bag of hotel brands, all with their own identity, but without any real sense of belonging or place within the wider Wyndham group.
“I would say the brands were run individually,” he explains.
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“What I wanted to do was explore the power of each brand and then explore the power of bringing them all together. We have done that in many ways — for instance we had our first ever global hotel conference, where 6000 people came from all over the world and we had all 15 brands represented by people in one room sharing what we do — that’s very powerful.”
Certainly everyone appreciates a sense of belonging, but group hugs aside, the business opportunities for working together are more tangible.
The group has recently introduced cross selling as a way of helping consumers do business with it, essentially utilising the company’s size to its full advantage.
“As big and powerful as we are, in the old days if you went to, let’s say, our Howard Johnson website, and you put in Howard Johnson Dubai, it would have said ‘sorry no results’,” Danziger explains.
“Now if you search for a particular brand in Dubai and there are none, the website will suggest our other brands that are present. That’s what I mean about bringing the group together more — as the largest hotel company in the world we need to act like that and behave in that way.”
That is not to say a few website tweaks will suffice in terms of cross selling. Danziger concedes that if you rang a hotel in one of the group’s brands it is currently unlikely the receptionist would be able to recommend a sister brand if they weren’t able to take the business.
“It has not [got to that point], but it should. If you make a reservation at the call centre you would get that, but it may take some time to get in that deep [where the hotel person can recommend a sister hotel].
That’s the reason we did things like the conference, so that people who are in this hotel can meet people who are not in this brand.”
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