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

timeshare A timeshare (sometimes called a vacation ownership or vacation club) is a Real property, property with a divided form of ownership or use rights. These properties are typically resort Condominium (living space), condominium units, in which mul ...

company headquartered in

Orlando, Florida Orlando ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. The city proper had a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Florida behind Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville ...

. It develops, sells, and manages timeshare properties under several vacation ownership clubs, including Club Wyndham, WorldMark by Wyndham, Margaritaville Vacation Club, and Accor Vacation Club. The company provides timeshare exchange services, primarily through RCI, and travel clubs including Travel + Leisure GO. The company operates two business lines: Vacation Ownership and Travel & Membership. Wyndham Worldwide was formed as a

spin-off Spin-off, Spin Off, Spin-Off, or Spinoff may refer to: Entertainment and media *Spinoff (media), a media work derived from an existing work *''The Spinoff'', a New Zealand current affairs magazine * ''Spin Off'' (Canadian game show), a 2013 Canad ...

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 Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc., is an American hospitality company based in Parsippany, New Jersey, United States. It describes itself as the largest hotel franchising, franchisor in the world, with 9,100 locations. The company was formed on J ...

and changed its own name to Wyndham Destinations and then to Travel + Leisure in 2021 following the acquisition of the brand from

Meredith Corporation Meredith Corporation was an American media conglomerate based in Des Moines, Iowa, that owned newspapers, magazines, television stations, and websites. Its publications had a readership of more than 120 million and paid circulation of more than ...

, later known as

Dotdash Meredith Dotdash Meredith (formerly The Mining Company, About.com and Dotdash) 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, hom ...

. The ''

Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Co. (formerly Wyndham Destinations, Inc., and Wyndham Worldwide Corporation) is an American timeshare company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. It develops, sells, and manages timeshare properties under several vacation owners ...

'' 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 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 ...

(HFS) in 1990, created as a vehicle to acquire hotel franchises. By 1995, it had acquired the

Days Inn Days Inn is a hotel chain headquartered in the United States. It was founded in 1970 by Cecil B. Day, who opened the first location in Tybee Island, Georgia. The brand is now a part of the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, headquartered in Parsippany ...

, Howard Johnson,

Ramada Ramada is a large American multinational hotel chain owned by Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. As of December 31, 2022, it operates 851 hotels with 120,344 rooms across 63 countries under the Ramada brand. Name The ''Ramada'' name derives from th ...

, and

Super 8 Super 8 or Super Eight may refer to: Film * Super 8 film, a motion picture film format released in 1965 * Super 8 film camera, a motion picture camera used to film Super 8mm motion picture format * ''Super 8'' (2011 film), a science-fiction f ...

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 CUC (Comp-U-Card) International Inc. was a membership-based consumer services conglomerate with travel, shopping, auto, dining, home improvement and financial services offered to more than 60 million customers worldwide based in Stamford, Connect ...

to form

. Cendant increased its involvement in the timeshare business by buying Fairfield Communities in 2001 and

Trendwest Resorts WorldMark by Wyndham (formerly Trendwest) is the developer and marketer of ''WorldMark, The Club'', a vacation ownership program. Worldmark by Wyndham is part of the Travel + Leisure Co. family of travel brands (Formerly Wyndham Worldwide and Wynd ...

in 2002. In 2005, Cendant bought the Wyndham hotel brand from the

Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. It was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions firm by Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman ...

. 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

occurred on May 31, 2018, and what remained of Wyndham Worldwide was renamed as Wyndham Destinations the same day.

Vacation Ownership

Travel + Leisure Co., headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is the largest vacation ownership company in the world by number of owners and resorts. It includes a network of more than 270 properties, 25,000 individual units, and over 800,000 property owners. Locations are in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, and the

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

. The company's Vacation Ownership business line 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.

Travel + Leisure vacation ownership brands

*Club Wyndham *Club Wyndham Asia *Margaritaville Vacation Club *Accor Vacation Club *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. Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical Location (geography ...

)

Travel & Membership

The company's Travel & Membership business line was formed 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 Love Home Swap is a subscription-based, peer-to-peer holiday home exchange or home swapping website. Members of the website swap homes with each other, either simultaneously or using a points system. The company is based in London, United Kingdo ...

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 Platinum Equity, LLC is an American private equity investment firm founded by Tom Gores in 1995, headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. The firm focuses on leveraged buyout investments of established companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia. ...

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.

Travel & Membership brands

* RCI *7Across (formerly DAE previously Dial An Exchange) *The Registry Collection *Travel + Leisure GO *Heroes Vacation Club *Armed Forces Vacation Club *Playbook365 *@Work International *Alliance Reservations Network

Sales practices

Wyndham Vacation Resorts was the focus of investigations regarding their sales practices in 2016 in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

and

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

. 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 Companies in the S&P 400