Travel + Leisure Co. (formerly Wyndham Destinations, Inc. and Wyndham Worldwide Corporation) is an American

timeshare A timeshare (sometimes called vacation ownership) is a property with a divided form of ownership or use rights. These properties are typically resort condominium units, in which multiple parties hold rights to use the property, and each owne ...

company headquartered in

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...

. It develops, sells, and manages timeshare properties under several vacation ownership clubs, including Club Wyndham and WorldMark by Wyndham, and provides timeshare exchange services, primarily through RCI. The company operates three business lines: Wyndham Destinations, the world's largest vacation ownership business; Panorama, operating vacation exchange, membership travel, and travel technology businesses; and Travel + Leisure Group, offering consumer travel products, including online and subscription travel services and product licensing. Wyndham Worldwide was formed as a

spin-off Spin-off may refer to: *Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work *Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity * Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gov ...

from

Cendant Corporation Cendant Corporation was an American provider of business and consumer services, primarily within the real estate and travel industries. In 2005 and 2006, it broke up and spun off or sold its constituent businesses. Although it was based in New Yo ...

in 2006, with ownership of Cendant's hotel and timeshare businesses. In 2018, Wyndham Worldwide spun off its hotel division as Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and changed its own name to Wyndham Destinations and then to Travel + Leisure in 2021 following the acquisition of the brand from Meredith Corporation, later known as

Dotdash Meredith Dotdash Meredith (formerly About.com) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, home, food, finance, tech, beauty, l ...

. The '' Travel + Leisure'' magazine is published independently by Dotdash Meredith under a long-term license agreement.

History

The company's origins can be traced to the founding of Hospitality Franchise Systems (HFS) in 1990, created as a vehicle to acquire hotel franchises. By 1995, it had acquired the Days Inn, Howard Johnson,

Ramada Ramada is a large American multinational hotel chain owned by Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. As of December 31, 2018, it operates 811 hotels with 114,614 rooms across 63 countries under the Ramada brand. Name The ''Ramada'' name derives from t ...

, and Super 8 brands. HFS then expanded into other businesses. In 1996, it acquired the timeshare exchange service

Resort Condominiums International RCI (formerly Group RCI and, before that, Resort Condominiums International) is a timeshare exchange company with over 4,300 affiliated resorts in 100 countries. Founded in Indiana in 1974 by Jon and Christel DeHaan, RCI is one of the two main ...

. In 1997, HFS merged with CUC International to form

. Cendant increased its involvement in the timeshare business by buying

Fairfield Communities Fairfield may refer to: Places Australia * Fairfield, New South Wales, a western suburb of Sydney. **Electoral district of Fairfield, the corresponding seat in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly * Fairfield, Queensland * Fairfield, Victoria ...

in 2001 and

Trendwest Resorts WorldMark by Wyndham (formerly Trendwest) is the developer and marketer of WorldMark, The club, a vacation ownership program and part of the Wyndham Worldwide Corporation. The original development partner of the club was Trendwest International ( ...

in 2002. In 2005, Cendant bought the Wyndham hotel brand from the Blackstone Group. On July 31, 2006, Wyndham Worldwide was created as a spin-off from Cendant with ownership of its hotel and timeshare businesses, as part of a plan to break Cendant up into four separate companies. In 2013, Wyndham acquired Shell Vacations Club for $102 million plus $153 million of assumed debt. In August 2017, Wyndham announced plans to spin off its hotel division to shareholders as a separate publicly traded company, thereby becoming a pure timeshare company. The spin-off of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts occurred on May 31, 2018, and what remained of Wyndham Worldwide was renamed as Wyndham Destinations the same day.

Wyndham Destinations

Wyndham Destinations, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is the largest vacation ownership program in the world. It includes a network of more than 245 properties, 25,000 individual units, and over 867,000 property owners. Locations are in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean ...

, and the

South Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. Wyndham Destinations includes marketing and sales of vacation ownership interests, consumer financing in conjunction with the purchase of vacation ownership interests, property management services to property owners' associations, and development and acquisition of vacation ownership resorts.

Wyndham Destinations brands

*Club Wyndham *Club Wyndham Asia *Margaritaville Vacation Club by Wyndham *Presidential Reserve by Wyndham *Shell Vacations Club * WorldMark by Wyndham *Club Wyndham South Pacific (formerly

Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific Club Wyndham South Pacific (formerly Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific and Trendwest South Pacific) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Travel + Leisure Co. which operates as a vacation ownership, allowing vacationers to own real estate interest ...

)

Panorama

Panorama was formed in 2020 to manage the company's timeshare exchange and membership travel and technology businesses, including RCI. This division operates the businesses formerly part of Wyndham Destination Network. Wyndham Exchange and Rentals officially changed its name to Wyndham Destination Network on January 1, 2016, and formerly operated over 110,000 vacation properties worldwide in more than 100 countries. To help diversify from its traditional exchange business, the company bought Love Home Swap in 2017. On May 9, 2018, Wyndham Worldwide Corporation completed an agreement to sell its European vacation rental business, which included cottages.com, Hoseasons, James Villa Holidays, Landal GreenParks, Novasol, and several others to Platinum Equity for around $1.3 billion Wyndham Destinations sold its North American Vacation Rental business and associated brands to Vacasa in July 2019 and purchased Alliance Reservations Network in August 2019 for $92 million.

Panorama brands

* RCI *7Across (formerly DAE previously Dial An Exchange) *The Registry Collection *Love Home Swap *Extra Holidays *Panorama Travel Solutions *@Work International *Alliance Reservations Network

Sales practices

Wyndham Vacation Resorts was the focus of investigations regarding their sales practices in 2016 in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Real Estate Commission for Pennsylvania fined Wyndham and their broker at their Shawnee-on-Delaware location, Craig Roberts, a total of $15,000. Eight months earlier, Wyndham settled similar allegations in Wisconsin paying $655,000 in restitution to 29 consumers. Also in 2016, a San Francisco jury awarded $20 million to Trish Williams, a former Wyndham timeshare sales representative, who was wrongfully terminated in 2010 for reporting timeshare fraud on the elderly.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Hospitality companies of the United States Hospitality companies established in 2006 Companies based in Orlando, Florida Corporate spin-offs Timeshare