Wyndham to buy Vienna House brand for $44M

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is buying the Austria-based Vienna House hotel brand for $44 million from Berlin-based HR Group. Through the acquisition, Wyndham will add a 23rd brand to its portfolio increasing its upscale and midscale portfolio with approximately 40 hotels and more than 6,000 rooms.

HR Group is a partner of Wyndham and will continue to own or lease and operate existing Vienna House hotels under long-term franchise agreements.

When the deal completes, the brand will be known as Vienna House by Wyndham.

"Europe continues to present accelerating growth for the travel sector with strong demand steadily bouncing back across leisure and business," said Geoff Ballotti, Wyndham’s CEO. "Vienna House's guest-centric culture, strong brand recognition and ambitious brand development plans align with our distribution goals, making it a perfect match to continue our international growth and reinforces our position and commitment to the region."

Making Deals

Wyndham has recently hinted that it wanted to enter the market for smaller regional brands. They needed, however, to fit in with the company’s asset-light growth strategy.

Speaking on the company's Q2 earnings call, Michele Allen, chief financial officer at Wyndham, said there were a couple of areas where the company was looking.

“[F]rom an M&A landscape perspective, we are looking for opportunities, both domestically and internationally, particularly in what we consider to be high-growth markets with high demand generators out into the future. And that probably looks more like smaller regional [businesses] in the midscale select-service or even upscale space,” she said.

Vienna House fits this description, especially given existing owner HR Group is keeping hold of the real estate.

Wyndham had also been tipped as a potential suitor for Radisson Hotel Group Americas, but Choice Hotels International eventually concluded that deal.