Fairfield and Trendwest to be rebranded as Wyndham

[mshatty]

Wyndham Worldwide to Rebrand Its Timeshare Properties World's
Largest Vacation Ownership Business Will Carry the Wyndham Flag

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PARSIPPANY, N.J., Oct 12, 2006 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ --
Wyndham Worldwide Corporation (WYN : wyndham worldwide corp com
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4:15am 10/12/2006

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WYN28.59, -0.65, -2.2%) , one of the world's largest hospitality
companies, today announced that it will rebrand its industry-leading
timeshare properties -- Fairfield Resorts(R), Trendwest(R) North
America and Trendwest South Pacific -- under the Wyndham(R) name.

"Adopting the Wyndham name within our timeshare business is a
significant leap forward in our global brand strategy and sets the
stage for further development of mixed-use hotel and timeshare
properties throughout our system," said Stephen P. Holmes, Wyndham
Worldwide chairman, president and chief executive officer.
"Associating the Wyndham brand with our world-class vacation
ownership resorts dramatically broadens the presence of our flagship
brand throughout the marketplace, both in the United States and
abroad," he said. "It also signifies a major evolution for the
Wyndham brand as it now extends to include upscale timeshare
products consumers can own and enjoy for life."
The rebranding process will begin with the Fairfield Resorts
transition to Wyndham Vacation Resorts, effective immediately.
Trendwest South Pacific will become Wyndham Vacation Resorts-Asia
Pacific later this year, followed by Trendwest North America, which
will transition its WorldMark by Trendwest brand to WorldMark by
Wyndham in early 2007.
Collectively, these brands will continue to operate as Wyndham
Vacation Ownership, one of three business units that comprise
Wyndham Worldwide.
The Wyndham brand will begin to appear on timeshare resorts as well
as Wyndham Vacation Ownership's sales, marketing and service centers
around the world in concurrent stages over a 12-month period. By the
end of the year, 15 to 18 high quality resorts in key markets will
prominently carry the Wyndham flag. When completed, more than 140
timeshare resorts throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the
Caribbean and South Pacific will be associated with the Wyndham
brand.
"We're excited to begin introducing our products to consumers under
the highly regarded Wyndham banner," said Franz S. Hanning, Wyndham
Vacation Ownership president and chief executive officer.
"For more than 40 years, we've built our success on the quality of
our resorts, the flexibility of our vacation ownership programs and
the talent and dedication of our more than 14,000 employees," he
said. "Matching these strengths with a world-class brand presents us
with substantial growth opportunities as we begin to reach new
consumers through a name they know and trust."
In conjunction with the reflagging of its timeshare properties,
Wyndham Vacation Ownership will launch comprehensive marketing
campaigns in national broadcast and print media as well as direct-
mail and e-commerce applications in support of its Wyndham-branded
vacation ownership products. The company also will develop
additional cross-marketing programs designed to introduce its full
spectrum of Wyndham-branded products to timeshare owners and hotel
guests.

 

["Roger"]

Thanks for calling this to our attention. I must admit (and I am not blaming the poster for this), it appears to be nothing more than Wyndham making a BIG DEAL about the fact that they are going to do nothing, keep the status quo...

The rebranding process will begin with the Fairfield Resorts
transition to Wyndham Vacation Resorts, effective immediately.
Trendwest South Pacific will become Wyndham Vacation Resorts-Asia
Pacific later this year, followed by Trendwest North America, which
will transition its WorldMark by Trendwest brand to WorldMark by
Wyndham in early 2007.​

In the end (unless I am missing something), they are simply saying that they are going to change the stationary. What are currently three different entities will stay three entities.

What I might be missing is where the Pahio and former Equivest resorts fit in. No news (is good news or bad news)??

 

[RichM]

To be clear it's Trendwest that's being re-branded. WorldMark will still be WorldMark the Club, an independent entity not owned by Wyndham, Cendant, Fairfield or anybody.


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[mshatty]

To be clear it's Trendwest that's being re-branded. WorldMark will still be WorldMark the Club, an independent entity not owned by Wyndham, Cendant, Fairfield or anybody.


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RichM,

Thank you for your post, my Title on this thread is inaccurate and I appreciate you pointing it out. Sorry for that!

 

[BocaBum99]

To be clear it's Trendwest that's being re-branded. WorldMark will still be WorldMark the Club, an independent entity not owned by Wyndham, Cendant, Fairfield or anybody.


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Actually, I don't think that is correct. They will be changing the signs on all WorldMark resorts that use Trendwest in their logo on the buildings.

It will change from "WorldMark by Trendwest" to "WorldMark by Wyndham".

That is a change in branding for WorldMark resorts and impacts all WorldMark owners. To me, it will be positively impacted.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Actually, I don't think that is correct. They will be changing the signs on all WorldMark resorts that use Trendwest in their logo on the buildings.

It will change from "WorldMark by Trendwest" to "WorldMark by Wyndham".

That is a change in branding for WorldMark resorts and impacts all WorldMark owners. To me, it will be positively impacted.

And the cost of making new signs, printing new stationary, etc., will probably be borne by the Club (since the resorts are deeded to the club).

Which would mean that the cost of rebranding the resorts would be paid by the owners and Wyndham would get a free rebrand.

 

[Bill4728]

The change from Trendwest to Wyndham make not be good for trendwest at least here in the NorthWest. Trendwest is a name that most adults (not TS owners) in the NW know and associate with TS. WM owners will quickly adjust to the name change, but the millions of people in the NW which knew Trendwest as "that TS sales company" will not have a clue who wyndham is or care. Worse for wyndham, many will think that Trendwest has gone out of business.

 

[RichM]

Actually, I don't think that is correct. They will be changing the signs on all WorldMark resorts that use Trendwest in their logo on the buildings.

It will change from "WorldMark by Trendwest" to "WorldMark by Wyndham".

That is a change in branding for WorldMark resorts and impacts all WorldMark owners. To me, it will be positively impacted.

WorldMark by (insert name here) is not the "official" name for WorldMark. While it does appear on the resort signs, it's an unofficial designation created by Trendwest. The official, registered California corporation name is "WorldMark, the Club".

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[BocaBum99]

WorldMark by (insert name here) is not the "official" name for WorldMark. While it does appear on the resort signs, it's an unofficial designation created by Trendwest. The official, registered California corporation name is "WorldMark, the Club".

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Nobody on this thread except for you mentioned anything about an "official" name change for WorldMark or it's corporate entity.

You said:

To be clear it's Trendwest that's being re-branded.

A Brand, logo or a Trademark is a separate and distinct entity from a Corporate name that is filed with the state for incorporation.

"WorldMark by Trendwest" is a logo or brand that appears on lots of WorldMark resorts and corporate literature. That will be replaced by "WorldMark by Wyndham". That is a massive re-branding effort that will be undertaken for or by WorldMark. I hope it's Wyndham that pays for it instead of our quarterly dues.

I think a more accurate statement would be "To be clear it's Trendwest that's is being re-named. That will impact all logos and trademarks that have Trendwest in them which are significant." So, in essence, WorldMark is going through a re-branding effort.

 

[RichM]

My point in all of this is that WorldMark is its own "brand" and that the name WorldMark is not changing to Wyndham as the thread topic "Fairfield and Worldmark to be rebranded as Wyndham" implies.

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[timeos2]

Worldtrend, Fairmark - who cares?

My point in all of this is that WorldMark is its own "brand" and that the name WorldMark is not changing to Wyndham as the thread topic "Fairfield and Worldmark to be rebranded as Wyndham" implies.

But it is being rebranded as much as Fairfield is. Wyndham is going to be the featured name - Worldmark will most likely fade away over time. I'm not at all sure this is good for any of the former brands but we won't know for sure until it all shakes out. It would be great if they treated the three as Sunterra has when they buy a new resort group. Assign a points value and add the inventory to the pie. If Wyndham did that they would have friends for life and a system to beat all others. Unfortunately the brain trust at the old FF/Worldmark, Trendwest and whatever is far more likely to set up 10 new "VIP" levels and try to convince everyone they "need" to buy more, at developer prices, to be in one of those everchanging elite tiers. If thats the case no one wins and things will stay pretty much as they are.

 

[AwayWeGo]

Disposable Brand Names.

I'm just a retired civil service grunt with no commercial experience whatsoever. Still, it seems to me that the corporate geniuses out there ought to be more careful about cooking up & then shedding & then buying new & then reattaching & then changing their well known brand names.

In the USA market for Japanese cars, the Big Two used to be Toyota & Datsun. Then the corporate geniuses at Nissan decided to scrap Datsun as their USA brand name & go with Nissan. True, the switchover was not abrupt. They phased out Datsun while phasing in Nissan. Nevertheless, switch they did. Ever since, the Big Two in the USA market for Japanese cars have been Toyota & Honda. Nissan (formerly Datsun) is somewhere back in the pack.

So it goes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[bogey21]

I don't know anything about Trendwest or WorldMark but as an outsider looking in, I think it will be an image enhancement when they replace the Fairfield name with Wyndham. My first though whenever I saw the Fairfield name was to associate it with Marriott's line of inexpensive Fairfield Hotels.

GEORGE

 

[RichM]

I still disagree that WorldMark will or can just "fade away".

Unlike the Fairfield Resorts system which IS actually OWNED by Wyndham, now, WorldMark is still, and will always be, its own separate entity. This is why Wyndham can't just fold WorldMark in with Fairfield and make it one, big "system" - they don't own it. Trendwest, now Wyndham, simply hold management and development contracts relative to WorldMark.

In fact, the announcement of this on the Trendwest forum is entitled "Wyndham Vacation Ownership Re-Brands Trendwest Resorts"

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[Laurie]

San Luis Bay Inn's management, which went from RCIM to Fairfield, is changing its name to Wyndham, their recent newsletter announced this.

 

[taffy19]

San Luis Bay Inn's management, which went from RCIM to Fairfield, is changing its name to Wyndham, their recent newsletter announced this.

The same at the little timeshare resort we own too (Laguna Surf in Laguna Beach, CA). We were there last week and the manager told us that really nothing changes so I am not going to worry about it too much. Some of the staff there has been there since the very beginning and they know us and we know them too by name and by face which is nice.

We have a good HOA too that looks after our interests as most of them are timeshare owners and want the best for our little resort without wasting to much of our money and that's the way it should be. This little resort was built in 1983 so needs tender loving care like our own home which is older yet as nothing lasts forever.

 

[tomandrobin]

I still disagree that WorldMark will or can just "fade away".

Unlike the Fairfield Resorts system which IS actually OWNED by Wyndham, now, WorldMark is still, and will always be, its own separate entity. This is why Wyndham can't just fold WorldMark in with Fairfield and make it one, big "system" - they don't own it. Trendwest, now Wyndham, simply hold management and development contracts relative to WorldMark.

I don't own at either, but am curious about this statement. It seems that WorldMark has some type of tie to Wyndham if they are going to add its name to them. What is the relationship between the two of them?

 

[Jya-Ning]

I don't own at either, but am curious about this statement. It seems that WorldMark has some type of tie to Wyndham if they are going to add its name to them. What is the relationship between the two of them?

TrendWest, a developer, set up WM so after they build a resort, they could push it to WM and sell WM's credit. WM holds the resort and owner can select the board. TW then was purchased by Cedant which split itself and rename the TW's parent company to Wyndham.

Rich actually make a mistake. FF-trust is a trust setup by FF. Same to WM, so it can push the sales. The difference is the FF-trust does not own the resorts. Plus, although there is a way allow the trust to go through election to select less than 1/2 non-FF employees to board, as of today, FF never do that, so all the board is appointed by FF. However, the owner owns resort. So FF-trust is just sever as an internal exchange system. Therefore, when talking about rebrand, FF-resort is the same as WM. Wyndham really has no right to rename either. But as often, developer will see both as just an extention of their company.

However, unlike FF, if WM's board approves it, which at this moment, I believe it is (or will be soon), then WM will be rebranded. FF in theory, should go through each and every resorts and ask them to approval. I have no doubt every one of them in FF will approve them.

Jya-Ning

 

[Lee B]

As I recall, the sign at the WorldMark resort in Kihei HI has WorldMark in big letters and Trendwest in much smaller ones. So maybe the Trendwest will go away and be replaced by a small Wyndham.

OTOH, maybe the WorldMark decision-makers, who may be mostly company people, will "vote" to rename WorldMark, the Club as Club Wyndham or something like that, and the WorldMark name would go away or be dramatically reduced.

WorldMark, the Wyndham Club
Wyndham Club WorldMark
Wyndham's Club WorldMark
WorkdMark, the Wyndham Vacation Ownership Club
WorldMark, the Club by Wyndham

 

[RichM]

I don't think it was made clear whether existing "WorldMark (by Trendwest)" signage will change, but certainly new signs will say "WorldMark (by Wyndham)". The WorldMark name isn't going away since it's the name of a separate corporation "WorldMark, The Club" which is not owned by Wyndham. The resorts will still be owned by WorldMark, The Club, not Wyndham. The "WorldMark (by Wyndham)" is just a manufactured logo to get some exposure for the name of the development company.


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