Wyndham Flies New Flag, Adds Markets

Wyndham's Caribbean presence now totals 5,941 rooms in 16 properties on eight islands. The alliance also brings ports of call in Mexico's Cancun playground which has been bare, until now, of a Wyndham flag.

Wyndham's gain of seven properties is the largest deal in "one fell swoop" since 1999, Jamie Walters, the Dallas-based hotelier's senior vice president of sales, tells GlobeSt.com. Wyndham was up against a number of other hoteliers chasing the Viva Resorts offer. "In the last month, it moved very quickly to our formalize agreement last week," Walters confides.

Viva Resorts, headquartered in the Dominican Republic's Santo Domingo, gets a "top of the mind awareness in the US" by teaming with Wyndham, which will roll the properties into its portfolio, Walters says. "Viva is a successful operator, but the bulk of the existing business comes from non-US feeder markets," he explains. "Wyndham is a vehicle to capitalize on the very lucrative US leisure market." Viva Resorts, founded in 1997, is viewed as one of the fastest growing, all-inclusive operators in the Caribbean and Mexico.

The seven resorts will be re-branded as Viva Wyndham Resorts. And none will compete with existing Wyndham properties, Walters emphasizes. Wyndham does have a resort in the Bahamas, but it's not all-inclusive so it won't be facing off for bookings against the 276-room Viva Wyndham Fortuna Beach on the Grand Bahama Island.

The Viva Wyndham flag also rises the 500-room Dominicus Beach and 330-room Dominicus Palace, both in La Romana-Bayahibe, Dominican Republic; the under-construction, 223-room Tangerine in Cabarete, Dominican Republic; 400-room Maya and 234-room Azteca, both in Playacar, Mexico; and the 355-room Vallarta in Vallarta, Mexico. Wyndham's only holding in Mexico is the 199-room Isla Navidad, a luxury resort near the Pacific Coast town of Manzanillo.