Cendant Welcomes New Execs

Cendant Corp. announced a number of key executive appointments in recent weeks. Steven Rudnitsky was named chairman and CEO of Cendant's hotel division, while Thomas Higgins and John Valletta each were appointed president and CEO of a Cendant brand, Days Inns Worldwide and Travelodge Hotels, respectively. All three executives are new to Cendant, which exclusively franchises hotels.

Also new to the Parsippany, N.J.-based company is Mike McCormick, who last month was named a senior vice president of Cendant's travel distribution division and president of both WizCom International and THOR.

Rudnitsky comes to the company from Kraft Foods, where he was president of its food services unit. While he has no direct hotel experience, he developed expertise in franchising during his earlier tenure at PepsiCo, where he was group director of North America restaurant development. In his new position, which he begins later this month, Rudnitsky will report to Stephen Holmes, chairman and CEO of Cendant's hospitality division.

Higgins, who comes to Days Inns from Sun Country Airlines, was a senior vice president for LaQuinta Inns earlier in his career.

Valletta, meanwhile, comes to Travelodge from Prime Hospitality, where he was senior vice president of its Wellesley Inns & Suites brand. Coincidentally, he also previously worked at LaQuinta.

McCormick, who will report to Sam Galeotos, CEO of Cendant's travel services and supplier group, joined the company from the PhoCusWright Internet e-commerce research firm, following senior positions with Biztravel.com and Rosenbluth International.

The two hotel brand presidents acknowledged these are challenging times for the U.S. lodging industry, but each also sees potential opportunities for his respective brand to make inroads among buyers and, consequently, increase market share.

With increased business traveler interest in drive-in locations as a result of concerns about air travel, Days Inns is well-positioned to take advantage of the trend, Higgins said.

"Most of our 1,900 hotels are convenient to highways, so we're virtually everywhere that a business traveler wants to go, often with multiple locations within a day's drive," Higgins said.

In addition to the traditional Days Inn prototype, the brand portfolio includes Days Hotels and Days Inns Business Place Hotels, which are geared more to the needs of the business traveler.

Both Higgins and Valletta are aware of the so-called trading-down trend, where buyers opt to direct travelers to brands at lower price points than they're used to as a cost-savings measure.

"With increasing price pressure on everyone's budgets, we expect more business travelers to take advantage of our competitively priced hotels this year," Valletta said.

In terms of going after any potential trade-down business, Valletta added that the brand intended to be very aggressive.

Travelodge presently has 590 properties in operation under either the Travelodge or Thriftlodge name.