THINC Middle East 2026: Dimitris Manikis, President, EMEA, WYNDHAM Hotels & Resorts

My name is Dimitris Manikis and I'm the president for Europe, Middle East, Eurasia and Africa for Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

Look, the key takeaway that everybody agreed is that the Middle East is the place to be. Innovation, fourth largest hospitality in terms of arrivals destination in the world. Biggest airport in the world being constructed at this point in Dubai. Branded residences, new concepts, all-inclusive coming to the country. So it is fascinating to see, as I said earlier on the panel, the UAE in particular and the Middle East in general is becoming the Formula One of the hospitality industry. It's the place where a lot of innovation is actually being tested here and in the next 3 to 5 years is going to be actually spread widely across the hospitality industry around the world. So it's very exciting for Wyndham Hotels and Resorts to be part of this journey. We've been part of this journey when it started years ago, but it's amazing to see the evolution every single year. Every time I come to Dubai, every time I go to Saudi Arabia or the UAE in general, I'm just amazed of the growth and the potential that is actually being generated. And it's not just numbers and theory. It's actually happening. I mean, I came this morning at the airport in Dubai. When I landed, I just couldn't move. It was so full. I just couldn't move. It took me 10 minutes to actually go from one place to another because there were people coming in to enjoy what this destination has to offer. So, very excited to be here, very excited to listen to the other panelists actually sharing the same views. And I'm very excited to be part of this amazing journey.

Vision. I think it's vision. I think it's vision and a plan. You know, everybody has a great vision and everybody has a great plan in life. The question is execution. What these guys are doing here. They have the vision, they have the plan, but they have the execution. Because you know what? How many times we all say, 'Oh, this is what I'm going to do today.' And at the end of the day, we said, 'Oh, actually, I haven't done it.' But why? Because we lack execution. Here, it's a combination of focus, energy, planning, and execution. To me, that's the secret of success. How do you execute a plan? The best plan in the world stays a plan if the execution is not present.

I think branded residencies is quite exciting of what is happening here. This is becoming again a showcase of brands in branded residencies. There's a lot of stuff that are actually being developed from a concept perspective. So that's one. And obviously the other one is going back to what hospitality always is, is make sure that guests are happy. I said earlier at the panel, in the West we are struggling by providing what the guest is looking for because of a number of reasons. You know, lack of resources, hospitality industry is not an industry for the young kids. They're not as excited as we were when we started our journey. Here you still see the excitement about the industry and that is what differentiates what is happening here versus other parts of the world.

Yeah. I mean, it's why? Because they come up with new ideas all the time. I was talking about last week, I was here again and I was talking about Al Marjan, you know, they create land. One thing that man could never, we never thought that man could actually create land and that's exactly what everybody's doing here, they created land out of nowhere. So, that means that the potential is untapped. Now, there are conversations, resources, water, you know, climate change. That is to me the important thing that needs to follow all this amazing growth, that you do it in a sustainable way. You do it in a way that it respects the environment, but at the same time, it's sustainable for the test of time. That is what the conversation is happening here in the UAE and I think it's a very valid and a very serious conversation.

Oh busy, because if you are not busy you're either dead or unemployed. So it's busy. A lot of interesting things are happening across hospitality, as I said, new destinations. I said at the panel earlier, we are extremely excited to be in the CIS, that's a new region that is growing for us, you know, Kazakhstan, Georgia, that's an amazing experience-driven region. I am extremely excited about what is happening in the Iberia Peninsula, Spain is now the number one tourist destination in the world. And the other thing that excites me a lot, that the more we talk about technology, the more I'm confident about the future of hospitality because the more technology comes into our lives, the more we need to connect with human beings. So technology is going to change the world, yes, it's going to change a lot about how we do hospitality, but at the same time, people will still need to get together, so more people will travel in the next few years. So I'm very excited about the future of our industry.

Thank you, buddy.