ECHO Suites Prolonged Keep by Wyndham celebrated the grand opening of its first location, ECHO Suites Spartanburg in South Carolina, this Wednesday. LODGING was available for the ribbon-cutting and tour of the extremely anticipated property, which broke floor final October as a part of a improvement pipeline that has grown to just about 270 ECHO Suites inns throughout america and Canada. Extra ECHO Suites are slated to open in Texas and Virginia this 12 months, and the model is on observe to have 75 inns open or beneath development by the top of 2026.
“It’s our fastest-growing model,” stated Geoff Ballotti, CEO, Wyndham Lodges & Resorts, on the occasion’s press convention. “I believe it can stay our fastest-growing model for a while, given the curiosity that’s on the market within the improvement neighborhood for such a product. The demand for extended-stay product continues to outpace the availability.”
The creating metropolis of Spartanburg is an instance of a market that favors prolonged keep, with a number of infrastructure initiatives that draw staff on the lookout for long-term lodgings. Ballotti noticed, “Spartanburg County is rising [several] occasions as quick as Greenville County is,” whereas Philip Cox, improvement companion with Mitch Cox Firms and proprietor of the ECHO Suites Spartanburg, added, “We’re large followers of Spartanburg County, the fastest-growing county final 12 months within the nation.” Johnson Metropolis, Tennessee-based Mitch Cox Firms can be a giant fan of ECHO Suites, having signed franchise agreements to convey the model to 12 places within the southeast. The 124-room ECHO Suites prototype requires beneath two acres of land and has a extremely aggressive value per key.
Whereas development staff shall be a significant a part of the ECHO Suites Spartanburg’s clientele, different forms of extended-stay company, comparable to touring nurses and digital nomads, can even discover worth within the property. The prototype’s guestrooms encompass single- and two-queen studio suites with kitchens in addition to effectively designed public areas comparable to a foyer, health heart, and 24/7 visitor laundry. Krishna Paliwal, Wyndham’s head of structure, design, and development, and Emily Crawford, company gross sales supervisor, Sandpiper Hospitality (the lodge’s administration firm), led a tour of those amenities and highlighted advantageous options for company. Examples embody blackout curtains, which allow night-shift staff to extra simply sleep throughout the day, and particular person WiFi entry factors for every guestroom, which ensures constant service for every visitor even when they use a number of units. Paliwal and Crawford additionally identified quite a few labor-saving options in addition to the eye-catching façade and coloration scheme. Cox summed it up by saying, “The product [Wyndham has] come out with is nice from an operational standpoint and works completely from an aesthetic standpoint; it actually stands out.”
Serving to to protect the integrity and consistency of the product is an unique deal with new builds. “We’re not permitting conversions,” stated Ballotti. “We’ve had loads of those that have stated, ‘I’ve an previous XYZ model lodge; will you enable us to transform it to an ECHO Suites?’ We don’t need it. … We wish all of them to be this prototype that you just simply toured, versus what can occur to a model from a product and design standpoint when it accepts conversions.”
One other differentiator for the model is an roughly 50,000-square-foot prototype that’s designed to supply 79 % of revenue-generating sq. footage. “That’s the best within the trade. It simply generates extra rentable sq. footage and better money returns,” stated Ballotti.
From a developer’s perspective, ECHO Suites presents “a possibility for us to companion with an incredible firm like Wyndham,” stated Cox. “They’ve collaborated with the builders; it’s not simply them saying, ‘Hey, that is the product.’ They actually listened and took suggestions from the house owners.” Ballotti added, “We love creating prototypes by skilled builders who’ve constructed aggressive merchandise and see the chance for what they’d love to do in a different way.”
Bringing much more worth to franchisees, Wyndham lately launched Mandeep Singh as vice chairman, Prolonged Keep Operations. Singh brings over 20 years of world expertise in extended-stay inns, company housing, serviced flats, and multi-family properties. On this new position, he’ll oversee Wyndham’s rising portfolio of extended-stay manufacturers with a deal with ECHO Suites and the brand new Waterwalk Prolonged Keep by Wyndham model.
