Wyndham Exchange & Rentals Wins INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section Practice Award

By: Wyndham Hotels & Resorts | 0 Shares 112 Reads

July 13, 2011 // Franchising.com // Parsippany, NJ — Wyndham Exchange & Rentals, part of the Wyndham Worldwide (NYSE: WYN) family of companies, recently won an award for its superior revenue management and pricing practices by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). The accolade recognizes the company's industry-first "Optimizing Vacation Exchange" model, which gives RCI® subscribing members a more transparent and convenient exchange process for RCI® Weeks.

"The team from Wyndham Exchange & Rentals has created an innovative solution to a difficult problem: how to provide a more flexible and transparent exchange process for its 3.8 million exchange members," said Robert Shumsky, chair of the judging committee for the award. "Their solution was simple and transparent to their members, and was backed up by a sophisticated optimization model to dynamically calculate the value within RCI of each property in the exchange transaction. The new system improved customer satisfaction, increased transactions and revenue for Wyndham Exchange & Rentals, and led to a sea change in the industry."

Wyndham Exchange & Rentals was among one of three finalists, including Disney and Google, during the presentation phase of the competition held at Columbia University from June 22-24. The judges selected Wyndham Exchange & Rentals based on the impact, originality and technical merit of the redesigned exchange model, which works by dynamically setting Exchange Trading Power values to help maximize the number of exchanges in RCI's network. The new model now gives RCI subscribing members insight into the value of their weeks deposited with RCI for exchange purposes, as well as the value of other deposited weeks, adding clarity and simplicity to the timeshare exchange process.

"The Revenue Management and Analytics team worked tirelessly to partner with groups across our global organization to design and build a highly complex system of algorithms, which are the heart of our exchange network and the basis for the entire trading process for our RCI Weeks product," said Gordon Gurnik, president, RCI, the global leader in vacation exchange. "In doing so, they have significantly increased customer satisfaction and better positioned us for future growth."

The winning Wyndham Exchange & Rentals' Metrics & Algorithms team members are Srinidhi Melkote (director, Analytics), Dasong Cao (senior research scientist), Preeti Modgil (analytical systems architect), Arjun Madhavan (manager, Analytics), Sneha Thakkar (senior research scientist), and Ryan Connelly (lead analyst).

The largest professional society in the world for the field of operations research, management science and business analytics, INFORMS presents the Revenue Management and Pricing Section Practice Award annually to companies that demonstrate exceptional applications of revenue management and pricing techniques.

About Wyndham Exchange & Rentals

Wyndham Exchange & Rentals is the worldwide leader in vacation exchange and the world's largest serviced vacation rentals business, providing access to approximately 97,000 vacation properties in nearly 100 countries. The vacation exchange business includes RCI, the worldwide leader in vacation exchange, The Registry Collection®, the world's largest luxury exchange program, and Endless Vacation Rentals®. The vacation rentals business is comprised of a diverse and celebrated collection of more than 25 brands including Hoseasons, Novasol®, Landal GreenParks®, ResortQuest® and James Villa Holidays. Each year, Wyndham Exchange & Rentals provides more than 4.9 million leisure-bound families with vacation exchange and rentals services and products. Wyndham Exchange & Rentals is part of the Wyndham Worldwide family of companies (NYSE: WYN). For additional information visit our media center.

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