Last year, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts launched its BOLD by Wyndham program, designed to support and advance Black entrepreneurs in hotel ownership.
Black employment in the hotel industry represents nearly 20% of all team members, though less than 2% of hotel owners are Black, according to The National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators and Developers.
With BOLD, which stands for Black Owners and Lodging Developers, Wyndham set out to improve those statistics. The program launched in July 2022 with the goal of addressing the unique challenges Black entrepreneurs face using Wyndham’s scale and resources.
Galen Barrett, a 10-year company veteran who in June was appointed to vice president of strategic franchise initiatives at Wyndham, played a part in the initial launch of BOLD. He now exclusively focuses on the advancement of BOLD as well as Wyndham’s Women Own the Room program.
Barrett sat down with Hotel Dive to discuss the ongoing challenges Black entrepreneurs face in the hotel industry, what progress BOLD has made in the year since its launch and how the industry at large can help diversify ownership.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HOTEL DIVE: What are some challenges or obstacles that Black entrepreneurs face in the hotel industry?
GALEN BARRETT: The challenges start early, and they start with awareness and, in lots of ways, representation.
When I was growing up and considering my career opportunities, I had a community around me in Indianapolis called the Jack and Jill organization, in which I was able to see Black families and Black adults who represented different pockets of career opportunity. There were Black professionals, including doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs. And that representation gave me a roadmap, and it inspired me to think through the various opportunities and paths that I could take. But, what I can tell you is that among that list was not a hotel owner.
So, one of the challenges that we're trying to bridge is that engagement within our industry in respect to Black ownership of commercial real estate and hotels in particular — it’s something that just isn't apparent, and it's self-defeating.
What feedback have you received from Black entrepreneurs entering the industry or existing Black hotel owners regarding the challenges they face?
It can be as simple as someone saying, ‘Well, I don't have any contacts who are aware of who actually manages hotels.’ So we open up our Rolodex and are able to meet them where they are.
More troubling is when someone says, ‘We have reached out to an organization and have not heard back.’ Since we [Wyndham] are credible in the industry, we can help follow up. We can make a call or we know someone at that organization so we're able to escalate and accelerate that conversation in ways that Black entrepreneurs have historically stalled out on their path to ownership, specifically within hotels.
Making folks aware of the scale and complexity of what it means to develop and operate a hotel is a feature of almost every conversation we have with BOLD candidates. And then there's a conversation around accelerating and supporting an advocacy element. We are a large, well-known organization within the industry, so using our credibility, our expertise, as well as our connection to accelerate entrepreneurs is another element.
How does Wyndham support BOLD franchisees through recruiting, training and financing?
Awareness and engagement are the biggest things that we can do for franchisees. We understand that there are a lot of Black entrepreneurs who have had success in alternative real estate opportunities, whether that's multifamily or quick-serve restaurants. There are people who have had experience and success in other types of ventures, but not hotels, so getting them into our industry, letting them know what the framework is and what the landscape is, that's step one. Awareness is huge.
Then, we have outreach. We tailor a lot of educational materials specifically so that we can help to train and make new entrepreneurs aware of what our industry is. We are very laser-focused on listening to the challenges our franchisees are facing while they are on that path to ownership.
There could be challenges around access to capital, and so we make an introduction to a lender or find someone within our network that may be a great capital partner. Or, for a franchisee who has the capital but doesn’t have experience managing a hotel, which is a very complicated endeavor, we can provide them the experience and expertise in finding the right management partner. And if we don't know the answer to a franchisee’s questions, we will look to find the answer.
In the year since its launch, what progress has BOLD made?
Over the last year, we've awarded 25 hotel contracts to BOLD initiatives and candidates. That progress, that engagement level, is something that we are excited about. It's something that we want to continue to push and, frankly, to accelerate. It's important for us to continue to build a pipeline of diverse owners. For me, the progress we’ve already made is going to build into the kinds of goal orientation that we have for ourselves.
What is Wyndham’s strategy for BOLD?
Our goals going forward are essentially to continue to evolve our programs, with respect to the feedback that we continue to get in each of the conversations that we have with franchisees.
What we are all about is hearing about their challenges and needs, and thinking about and brainstorming solutions for those on a first pass. But, that's not going to be the end of the conversation.
What we will have done is move those entrepreneurs to the next phase where they will have new conversations, new challenges, which are creating new opportunities for us to continue to evolve our programs. Our goal this year essentially is to bridge the learnings of what we have taken from the last year to evolve our programs to meet that need.
Why are programs like BOLD important to the hospitality industry at large, and what additional work does the industry need to do to become more diverse?
I think that DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] is important and not just in the hospitality industry. There are conversations that should be happening irrespective. DEI is a core value of Wyndham, and we have always had it as part of our hiring, training and internal focus. And we're happy to see that there are others in the industry that are joining in this mission to bring these topics to the forefront.
