CCO of Wyndham on Scaling Innovation Across 9,000 Hotels
What happens when the Chief Commercial Officer of the world’s largest hotel franchisor rethinks the entire guest-to-tech relationship? In this episode, Wyndham CCO Scott Strickland reveals how a single global tech stack, empathetic AI, and vendor co-development are quietly reshaping hotel operations at a scale few brands on earth can match.Key Takeaways: How Wyndham uses one global tech stack across 9,000 hotels—and why standardizing CRS, PMS, loyalty, CRM, and marketing systems unlocks speed, cost efficiency, and innovation (including a surprising 25% drop in handle time from a co-built tool). Actionable strategies for building high-trust vendor partnerships—including why Wyndham gives Salesforce, Oracle, Sabre, Hapi, and Adobe physical office space inside their HQ, and how that accelerates co-innovation. The real-world playbook for operational AI—from empathetic, multi-language AI agents that guests have literally asked out on dates to omnichannel reservation automation and hyper-personalized offers that adapt to guest behavior in real time. Lessons from other industries hoteliers rarely study—how retail, manufacturing, and airlines provide blueprints for automation, app-based journeys, and guest-centric digital experiences.If you’re serious about future-proofing your tech strategy, don’t miss an episode—subscribe to Hotel Tech Insider and share this one with a colleague who’s shaping the next generation of hotel operations.