BRIDGING THE GAP WITH WYNDHAM’S PANOS LOUPASIS
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts continues to expand across the Middle East with a pipeline of 23 additional properties and over 4,600 planned between now and 2023. Panos Loupasis, Vice President Development – Middle East, Eurasia & Africa for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, discusses the company’s ambitious growth strategy and execution
You recently announced your expansion in Oman with two new brand entries. Can you tell us a little about your strategy for this market and its importance for Wyndham?
Over the past year, Oman has become an increasingly popular destination for travelers, witnessing an increase of more than 25 percent in inbound visitors in the first six months of 2019 alone. This surge in visitor numbers follows the Ministry of Tourism’s sustained efforts to promote Oman as a key travel destination and attract investment to the sector. The openings of our two new hotels in Muscat mark a significant milestone for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, as we seek to expand our presence in this increasingly important market and support Oman’s ambitious Vision 2040 tourism program. As the world’s largest hotel franchising company, we are particularly focused on helping to develop the country’s mid-market hotel sector and creating more job opportunities for the people of Oman.
Our expansion marks the introduction of two new brands to Oman – Wyndham Garden and Ramada Encore by Wyndham.
The unrivaled locations of the hotels in the heart of Muscat’s business and leisure district makes these the perfect properties to complement our growing offering in the region, and underlines our commitment to strengthening our presence in this important market.
Focusing more broadly on the Middle East – what is Wyndham’s short-term and long-term outlook/vision for the Middle East region?
Over the past year, we’ve seen tremendous growth and significant signings within the UAE, Saudi Arabian and Omani markets in particular. In this time, we’ve reached significant milestones and continued to expand our footprint – including important new openings and signings, a series of key brand launches and new market entries.
Just last December, we introduced two more of our iconic brands into Saudi Arabia for the first time – Wyndham Garden Damam and Howard Johnson Dammam Cornish Street. The year 2018 also saw the launch of two other hotels in KSA (Ramada by Wyndham Al Khobar King Abdullah Street & Ramada by Wyndham Dammam Khaleej Road), further strengthening our offering within the important mid-market sector in the Kingdom, bringing us to 15 operational hotels and over 2,300 rooms – with five more properties and over 1,000 additional rooms in our development pipeline.
We also recently announced three new hotels in Dubai as part of the Deira Waterfront Development by Ithra Dubai, under the Wyndham (282 rooms), Days by Wyndham (131 rooms) and Super 8 by Wyndham (90 rooms) brands (the first Days Inn and Super 8 properties in the UAE).
What are your thoughts on the current level of supply in the Dubai market? And how do you think Dubai will fare post Expo 2020?
When you look at future room supply in the emirate, the majority of it falls within the four and five-star category. However, oversupply is not really an issue if you target the right segment. By this, I mean that any developer or hotelier taking on a new project in any region should be looking at where they can bridge the gaps in that particular market. This is what we have focused on doing here in the UAE and wider Middle East with our focus on the mid-market and economy sector.
Looking ahead to Expo 2020 and beyond, while a natural downturn can be expected following an increase in supply ahead of any major event, we expect this to very much be in the short-term as additional supply gets absorbed. With the increase in visitor numbers year-on-year and growing demand in the mid-market sector, particularly from high-growth markets like India and China, we believe Dubai has the potential to continue to be a popular destination post-expo 2020. In fact, its history of successfully diversifying itself as a tourism offering leads us to remain very optimistic that any downturn will be followed by a more positive uplift in the market as the region continues to draw visitors to our shores in the years to come.