Going it Alone: Why Hotel Owners Are Dropping The Big Brands

The most consequential business decision Pritesh Patel made in 2024 was also among the simplest: He read his family’s franchise agreement.

The Patel family had operated a Super 8 in Chariton, Iowa, a town of around 4,000 people, since 2005 when his parents signed a 20-year deal with Wyndham, the brand's parent company. They paid a royalty fee, a marketing assessment, and technology charges. Patel estimates it came to roughly 10% of revenue, taken off the top. In return, they got to fly the Super 8 flag above the building.

But when the agreement came up for renewal, the younger Patel — off a consulting stint at PwC — went through his parents' books. He wanted to see what they were getting for all that cash. Turned out, he thought, not very much.

Patel felt the brand didn’t have cachet anymore. The reservation system was one he could replicate with readily available software. And the territorial protection the contract promised, on close re