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 growth pipeline that has grown to almost 270 ECHO Suites motels throughout america and Canada. Further ECHO Suites are slated to open in Texas and Virginia this yr, and the model is on monitor to have 75 motels open or underneath development by the top of 2026.
“It’s our fastest-growing model,” mentioned Geoff Ballotti, CEO, Wyndham Accommodations & Resorts, on the occasion’s press convention. “I believe it’s going to stay our fastest-growing model for a while, given the curiosity that’s on the market within the growth group for the sort of product. The demand for extended-stay product continues to outpace the provision.”
The creating metropolis of Spartanburg is an instance of a market that favors prolonged keep, with a number of infrastructure tasks that draw staff searching for long-term lodgings. Ballotti noticed, “Spartanburg County is rising [several] occasions as quick as Greenville County is,” whereas Philip Cox, growth associate with Mitch Cox Firms and proprietor of the ECHO Suites Spartanburg, added, “We’re massive followers of Spartanburg County, the fastest-growing county final yr within the nation.” Johnson Metropolis, Tennessee-based Mitch Cox Firms can also be a giant fan of ECHO Suites, having signed franchise agreements to carry the model to 12 places within the southeast. The 124-room ECHO Suites prototype requires underneath two acres of land and has a extremely aggressive price per key.
Whereas development staff might be a serious a part of the ECHO Suites Spartanburg’s clientele, different kinds of extended-stay friends, akin to touring nurses and digital nomads, may also discover worth within the property. The prototype’s guestrooms include single- and two-queen studio suites with kitchens in addition to effectively designed public areas akin 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 friends. Examples embrace 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 gadgets. Paliwal and Crawford additionally identified quite a few labor-saving options in addition to the eye-catching façade and shade 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,” mentioned Ballotti. “We’ve had loads of those that have mentioned, ‘I’ve an previous XYZ model lodge; will you enable us to transform it to an ECHO Suites?’ We don’t need it. … We would like 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 very best within the business. It simply generates extra rentable sq. footage and better money returns,” mentioned Ballotti.
From a developer’s perspective, ECHO Suites presents “a possibility for us to associate with an awesome firm like Wyndham,” mentioned 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 otherwise.”
Bringing much more worth to franchisees, Wyndham not too long ago launched Mandeep Singh as vice chairman, Prolonged Keep Operations. Singh brings over 20 years of worldwide expertise in extended-stay motels, company housing, serviced residences, and multi-family properties. On this new function, 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.