More than seven months after it was launched, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts' 24th brand has an official name — Echo Suites Extended Stay By Wyndham.
HNN's Bryan Wroten reported in September, when the brand had hit a milestone 100 signed contracts, that the delay in the official name was due to a backlog at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The economy, extended-stay brand launched with a working title, Project ECHO, which executives at the time said was an acronym for Economic Hotel Opportunity.
Wyndham President & CEO Geoff Ballotti first teased the new brand on a call with analysts to discuss the firm's fourth quarter and full-year 2021 earnings results in February, saying an announcement was coming in the spring.
Announcing the launch in March, Ballotti said: "Demand for these accommodations only continues to climb — both from guests and developers alike — making now the right time for Wyndham, the definitive leader in the economy segment, to bring our experience and expertise to this high-potential space."
Echo Suites is Wyndham's second extended-stay hotel brand, behind the midscale Hawthorn Suites, which it acquired in 2008.
Hotel developers haven't been deterred by the lack of an official name. In a news release, Wyndham states that it is "officially the fastest-growing brand in Wyndham's development pipeline," with 120 hotels signed across the U.S., "well ahead of the ... end-of-year goal."
The brand broke ground on its first hotel in Plano, Texas, in September, with plans to open it in 2023. Its second and third hotels were scheduled for groundbreaking today in Sterling and Richmond, both in Virginia. Dallas-based Gulf Coast Hotel Management is the developer on the Plano project, and the Virginia hotels are being developed by Richmond-based Sandpiper Hospitality.
Carter Rise, founder and CEO of The Sandpiper Group of Companies, said in the news release that the company plans to develop 27 Echo Suites hotels in total.
In the release, Wyndham laid out what makes the brand attractive to developers: "The purpose-built, all new-construction, 124-room Echo Suites prototype requires just under two acres of land and has a highly competitive cost per key. Coming in at approximately 50,000 square feet — nearly 74% of which is rentable — individual rooms average 300 square feet. The rooms consist of single- and two-queen studio suites with kitchenettes as well as efficiently-designed public spaces — a lobby, fitness center and 24/7 guest laundry — that help to limit labor needs."
Ballotti said that the brand also fills a need for long-term guests seeking "a space that looks and feels like them. A space that's well-designed and inviting."
"We believe if you can give them that, they will come back, night after night, stay after stay. That's what Echo Suites is all about: giving guests a great extended-stay experience, at a great price, so that, like an echo, they repeat it, over and over again."