Palladium Hotel Group and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts recently announced their latest venture: a commercial alliance that will add more than 6,500 all-inclusive rooms to the U.S.-based hospitality juggernaut.
According to Sergio Zertuche, chief sales and marketing officer at Palladium Hotel Group, they had noticed a growing trend of similar mergers over the past few months before deciding to make their move. “At the time, we saw a good complement between Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and our company that could become a win-win situation,” he tells Recommend. “Wyndham didn’t have a huge presence yet in the all-inclusive segment in the Caribbean, and in our case, our strategy was to continue growing and gaining market share in the U.S.”
Knowing Wyndham is the world’s largest hotel franchising company with access to 94 million clients through its rewards program was key to creating this long-term alliance, notes Zertuche. And, of course, they had an eye on the future: this partnership increases the value of Palladium’s proposals to future investors (“we would love to be in Cabo!”) by adding Wyndham’s extensive distribution to the Spanish company’s intrinsic knowledge and experience in the operation of all-inclusive properties in the Caribbean.
A total of 14 spectacular all-inclusive TRS Hotels and Grand Palladium Hotels & Resorts (plus the more affordable Dominican Fiesta Hotel & Casino) will join the Wyndham portfolio, bringing their number of all-inclusive resorts to 26 hotels. The Palladium Hotel Group properties are in Mexico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Brazil.
All will retain their branding, as this is solely a strategic commercial alliance. The 14 luxury properties will become a part of the Registry Collection Hotels, the soft brand created by Wyndham last year to gather independent hotels handpicked for their high quality and extraordinary offer. For Zertuche, it is a recognition of the company’s hard work over the past few years to reposition the Grand Palladium and TRS brands in the high-end market. The Dominican Fiesta Hotel & Casino property will become part of the Trademark Collection.
“This allows us to keep our values, identity, attributes, and value proposition in our hotels, with our own delivery,” explaines Zertuche. “It’s also excellent for Palladium hotels because belonging to the portfolio of an American company gives our trade partners and our travel advisor community more confidence knowing that Palladium can reach and meet the standards of delivery and excellence of an American corporation.”
The alliance, he adds, opens up an entirely different segment because, in addition to having access to the Wyndham room-only strategy in terms of distribution, Palladium will continue working with travel advisors, partners and tour operators to offer vacation packages. Zertuche also points out that the Palladium Connect and Palladium Rewards programs will continue, with the latter relaunched later this year. “We will be talking more about that in Q4 of this year,” he said, “but this alliance will not affect the programs at all. We see it as an additional distribution channel.”
As a practical added value for your clients, this alliance also means holders of both Wyndham and Palladium rewards programs now have additional choices in the all-inclusive luxury range in some of the Caribbean’s hottest destinations.
The first four properties to join the Registry Collection Hotels under this alliance include the Riviera Maya’s Grand Palladium Colonial Resort & Spa, Grand Palladium Kantenah Resort & Spa, Grand Palladium White Sand Resort & Spa, and TRS Yucatan Hotel. Additional properties to join the collection upcoming in August and September include Grand Palladium Costa Mujeres Resort & Spa (Cancun), Grand Palladium Vallarta Resort & Spa (Riviera Nayarit); Grand Palladium Palace Resort Spa & Casino, Grand Palladium Punta Cana Resort & Spa and Grand Palladium Bavaro Suites Resort & Spa, TRS Turquesa Hotel and TRS Cap Cana Hotel (Punta Cana, Dominican Republic); Grand Palladium Jamaica Resort & Spa and Grand Palladium Lady Hamilton Resort & Spa (Montego Bay, Jamaica); and Grand Palladium Imbassai Resort & Spa (Imbassai, Brazil).
For more information, visit palladiumhotelgroup.com and wyndhamhotels.com.
