The world hotel market is close to bottoming out and could begin to recover in the fourth quarter, chief executive of Wyndham Hotel Group said on Sunday. "I think we've reached the bottom, but the bottom is quick sand," Eric Danziger told Reuters on the sidelines of a hotel conference in Dubai.
Wyndham, a unit of the world's largest timeshare operator Wyndham World-wide Corp, said the hotel division saw Asia, with China specifically, and the Middle East as providing good growth opportunities in the coming months. "I do feel the worst is over," Danziger said, declining to give a profit outlook for the second quarter.
Wyndham and its peers in the once-booming hotel industry have suffered as the global financial crisis prompts companies to cut travel budgets and deters potential holidaymakers. But Wyndham World-wide Corp reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit last month, helped by broad cost cuts, particularly in its time-share business.
Danziger said the group did not expect the flu outbreak in Mexico to affect the its business "significantly" because its properties were franchised. The hotel unit was not planning any further job cuts after some redundancies early last year, Danziger said.