Wyndham Places Acquires Journey + Leisure for $100 million

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Here is hoping this tale will become extremely relevant in the near long term.

Wyndham Places, the holiday vacation rentals and timeshare firm, announced yesterday a offer to acquire the media brand Travel + Leisure from Meredith for $100 million.

A Match Created in Hawaii

Wyndham Places, which spun off from the Wyndham Resort chain in 2018, operates 230 timeshare resorts around the globe.

Journey + Leisure, in addition to the perfectly-recognized journal, offers membership travel solutions this sort of as Vacation + Leisure Family Club. 

Industrial Logic: Jointly, underneath the manufacturer “Journey+ Leisure Co.,” management will look to use T+L’s articles as a flywheel to drive new timeshare membership.

Traditionally, holiday golf equipment and timeshares have been unpopular with younger generations (the median age for timeshare house owners is 51). But with new trip clubs in city locales like Nashville and Atlanta, millennials are now Wyndham’s swiftest-expanding demographic.

• The obtain of Journey + Leisure fits with this technique. CEO Michael Brown stated the business will goal to give “extra membership-dependent journey rewards for a decrease cost and a shorter period” and also expand licensing agreements.

Below the agreement, Meredith will keep on to run the media model below a 30-calendar year license settlement. 

Vacation About Company The united states

Journey + Leisure has been on pretty a journey by itself. At first established by American Categorical (go determine) T+L was in the end bought to Time in advance of being scooped up as aspect of Meredith’s acquisition of Time in 2018.

For Meredith, the transaction carries on a streak of marketing iconic but economically beleaguered titles to entities with very little publishing encounter.

• Meredith bought the namesake Time Magazineto Salesforce’s Marc Benioff for $190 million.
• Fortune was just lately pawned off to a Thai businessman for $150 million.
• Athletics Illustrated was kicked over to Reliable Brands Team for $110 million. 

The Takeaway: Wyndham Places needs all the momentum it can get. While timeshares fared a bit greater than the lodge market, its 2020 Q3 revenues ended up down 44%.