RYAN FERGUSON‍

VP OF REVENUE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS, WYNDHAM HOTELS & RESORTS

Ryan Ferguson is vice president of revenue management solutions at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, the world’s largest hotel franchising company with approximately 9,100 hotels across 24 brands. He oversees the company’s revenue management solutions team and is responsible for revenue management systems, revenue management operations and distribution operations. He joined the company in 2012 as director of operations and support and was named
to his current position in 2020.

Ferguson’s primary initiative over the last three years has been the global implementation of a new revenue management solution. The company looked at a number of systems before collaborating with IDeaS to co-develop RevIQ, a cloud-based, mobile-first solution that leverages real-time data to make automatic pricing recommendations and adjustments so that hoteliers can optimize strategies based on market insights. “We wanted a solution that focused on the mobile side of things and would give each property manager and owner a comprehensive view of rates, pace, pick-up, and how the hotel is performing,” he explained, adding that he and his team consulted with key franchisees to develop a wish list of features and functionality. IDeaS then built the solution specifically for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.
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The roll-out required a tremendous amount of cooperation between IDeaS, ZS Associates, franchisees and other hotel partners, such as Sabre and Oracle, as Wyndham migrated hotels to SynXis Property Hub and Opera Cloud. Each hotel had a dedicated point of contact while the solution was configured for each property. Ferguson then turned his attention to adoption, performance and post-live support. So far, the system is live at more than 5,500 hotels in 19 countries.
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In 2023, Wyndham’s revenue management department was brought into the company’s much larger IT division (led by Scott Strickland, a 2020 Hospitality Upgrade rock star), and Ferguson had an opportunity to increase the size of his team in his new role. “It has been great to basically start from scratch and build out a group of highly experienced revenue management professionals,” he said. “We can now leverage synergies on the IT side to help increase profitability across the company’s entire portfolio.”
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Plans for the future include building on the basics of the new revenue management system. “We’ve rolled out a next-generation solution, and now we want to add features and functionality as needed,” he said. Another priority is bringing the new solution to even more franchisees. “This system is truly a game-changer,” Ferguson concluded. “Wyndham was the first major hotel company to introduce an automated revenue management system in the economy and midscale segments, and now we’re building on that leadership position by delivering smart management capabilities globally—anytime, anywhere and on any device.”

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RYAN’S INDUSTRY PREDICTIONS:

VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY TECHNOLOGY WILL BECOME MORE WIDELY ADOPTED.
“These technologies will be particularly helpful in the areas of guestroom design and virtual tours.”

INTEGRATION OF VOICE TECHNOLOGY WILL INCREASE.
“Technology like Amazon’s Alexa will become more widely used as a way for guests to control room settings and access hotel services,” HE SAID.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING WILL TAKE OFF.
“We’ll see these technologies routinely used in areas like guest personalization, inventory management and predictive maintenance.”