2) What are your plans to get more reservations for franchisees through the Internet?

Over the past several years there’s been a natural progression of bookings moving away from phone reservations to online reservations. As a result, we’re increasing the amount of money we spend on online marketing to continue to drive traffic and reservations to our branded Web sites. Additionally, we’re being aggressive in our rates, offering customers our “Best Rate Guarantee” -- our commitment to guests that if they find a lower publicly advertised price than what’s available on our Web sites, we’ll give them their first night free.

3) What do you feel about the contribution of Asian Indian Hotel owners towards the growth of American Hospitality industry and Wyndham Worldwide?

Asian Indian hotel owners have had a significant influence on the growth of the economy and midscale hotel segments over the past twenty years. Their collective dedication and passion for the industry has played an important role in the shaping of the industry.

4) How can Asian Indian Hotel owners take greater part in respective brands or Wyndham Worldwide's management & policy formulation?

Wyndham Hotel Group is committed to making decisions and formulating policies that are in the best interest of both the company and its franchisees. When it comes to Asian Indian hotel owners, we work closely with a variety of organizations, including the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, to help maintain our strong standing in the lodging industry and strengthen our relationships with members of the community. Additionally, we regularly meet with each brand’s advisory board, which consists of owners of all backgrounds.

For those looking to play a greater role in their brand’s policies, I would encourage them to voice their opinions to their advisory boards and brand leadership.

5) What can prospective or new Asian Indian Hoteliers expect from Wyndham Worldwide if they were to opt for any of your brands?

Being a part of Wyndham Hotel Group means that owners are able to take advantage of a strong business-generating infrastructure as well as a multitude of services including marketing, quality assurance, global sales, reservation systems’ support and our Wyndham Rewards loyalty program – the largest in the industry based on number of participating hotels.

Even though we’re the world’s largest franchisor of hotels, we maintain strong, close relationships with our franchisees. Our brand executives make a point of regularly meeting with franchisees, and locally, our owners receive personalized assistance from their directors of business development, who help them recognize and work toward their business goals. In addition, our franchisee advisory boards ensure that owners have an opportunity to voice their opinions to the leaders of the company.

6) What do you feel about mobile Internet? Will travelers start booking hotels through mobile by 2015? Do you have strategy in place to tap the power of mobile Internet?

Mobile Internet represents a huge opportunity for our company and is something we continue to explore. Recently, we tested Mobile Internet marketing with a few of our brands and it proved to be very successful.

7) Do you track the traveler's reviews on websites like www.tripadvisor.com and take appropriate measures to improve the guest experience?

What the consumer thinks is vitally important to the success of our hotels and our company. As such, we use several methods to ensure that we’re tapping into our guests’ experiences and opinions. With on-line travel rating sites like TripAdvisor, we have an established process in place by which our Customer Care department monitors, and when necessary, responds to and resolves the complaints of our guests.

In addition, we also make use of a service known as Medallia. After guests stay at one of our properties, they have the possibility of being randomly selected to participate in a 10 minutes survey, allowing them the opportunity to comment specifically on all aspects of their stay at a specific property. We then have the opportunity to review their comments and correct any issues that may exist.

Lastly, we work closely with companies like J.D. Power and Associates to monitor the satisfaction of our guests and identify areas in which we are succeeding as well as areas where we have opportunities to improvement.

8) What steps can individual franchisees take to be successful and effective in Internet marketing?

When it comes to Internet marketing, it’s important that franchisees take advantage of the resources that are available to them. At Wyndham Hotel Group, we routinely hold regional brand meetings and at those meetings, offer several seminars, including one on Internet marketing. This is a great starting point for franchisees looking to maximize their online marketing efforts.
Additionally, at those same meetings, representatives from our major online travel partners including Expedia and Travelocity are often on-hand to meet with our franchisees to discuss ways in which they can better promote their properties online.

Lastly, all of our major online travel partners have in-market representatives, who are willing to work with our franchisees at anytime to reshape or refocus their online marketing efforts. I would encourage franchisees to establish strong relationships with them.