Hyatt’s Growth Plan Highlights Premium Brands and Global Markets

Daily Lodging Report

Skift’s Daily Lodging Report is a subscription-required, email-only newsletter read by anyone and everyone in the hotel investor, owner, and operator space, including CEOs of some of the industry’s top brands. It covers North America and Asia Pacific with two separate regional editions.

Here are some excerpts from Daily Lodging Report from the past week. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here, now.

Sunday, January 22

Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced they are positioned for continued transformative growth in 2023 and beyond with a record pipeline of approximately 117,000 rooms worldwide as of year-end 2022. Nearly one in four pipeline properties is classified as a lifestyle hotel, further strengthening Hyatt’s leadership position in the luxury, lifestyle and leisure segments. A notable drive of this growth is the announced asset-light acquisition of Dream Hotel Group’s lifestyle hotel brand and management platform which is expected to bring Dream hotels, Unscripted hotels and The Chatwal into the Hyatt portfolio. Additionally, the Caption by Hyatt brand is poised for significant growth. The brand is expected to grow its presence in Tennessee and enter California, China, and Japan in 2023, Vietnam in 2025 and Sydney in the coming years. The Park Hyatt brand is set to reestablish its presence in South Africa, make its entrance to Morocco, return to London and expand in the Asia Pacific region including Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam. In 2023, the Andaz brand will celebrate expansion into new markets such as Qatar, Thailand, Mexico, Macau and Greater China. Hyatt’s Boundless Collection and Independent Collection feature a healthy pipeline of expected openings in 2023 and 2024 including the growth of Thompson Hotels with two chic urban properties; expansion of the Hyatt Centric brand in prime destinations; the anticipated debut of the Destination by Hyatt brand in Florida as well as in Asia Pacific; the planned debut of the JdV by Hyatt brand in Rhode Island and in Goa; and the anticipated opening of The Unbound Collection by Hyatt in Mexico. Hyatt also offers a healthy pipeline of expected openings of all-inclusive resorts in 2023 including Bulgaria, and Mexico.

First Hospitality said they realized significant growth in 2022, increasing hotels under management by 25%. The company expanded into three new markets, bringing First Hospitality’s diverse portfolio of branded and independent properties to over 50 hotels across 11 states. 

Skift Note: For context, find Skift’s Hyatt coverage here and read Skift’s profile of First Hospitality’s strategy.

Monday, January 23

Jefferies gave their preview of the hotel investment event, the ALIS Conference, saying they anticipate the lodging management teams will provide incremental color on the trajectory of lodging in a variety of economic scenarios. Jefferies is focused on top-line risks which they think manifest in 2H23. Clearly, there is a lot of uncertainty from Wall Street on the lodging sector, less so it seems from executives. What we always enjoy is listening to the commentary and seeing the tone of ALIS and then comparing it to the NYU show in early summer. We cannot remember a time when the tone or the commentary was the same. Just think of three years ago when everyone brushed off Covid, at that time the Pneumonia of Unknown Origin, as nothing to worry about. In fact, we were the only ones that said differently, arguing this was SARS on steroids, having the one thing SARS did not have, transmissibility. The rest is history.

The new Handwritten Collection from Accor will see the Wonil Hotel Perth in Australia open at the Forrest Hall Precinct in early February 2023. The hotel has 66 short-stay accommodation rooms.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is setting its sights on a continued expansion in 2023, following a banner year that saw the company cap multiple milestones and accomplishments across the globe. Among its many milestones and accomplishments in 2022, Wyndham significantly expanded its presence in the all-inclusive space, adding 14 new hotels to its Registry Collection Hotels brand. Wyndham nearly doubled the size of its upscale footprint in Europe, the Middle East, Eurasia and Africa with the acquisition of the Vienna House brand from HR Group. The company expanded 13 brands into a combined 22 new markets.

IHG Hotels & Resorts announced it entered exclusive negotiations to add a flagship Osaka hotel with more than 1,000 rooms to its Vignette Collection brand. IHG plans to enter into a long-term agreement with The Royal Hotel, Limited and BentallGreenOak to add the RIHGA Royal Hotel Osaka to its system in 2023. It will then relaunch as RIHGA Royal Hotel Osaka – Vignette Collection in 2025 following an extensive refurbishment and repositioning of the asset. Royal Hotel had recently announced they would sell the land and buildings of its RIHGA Royal Hotel to a Canadian real estate investment firm, aiming to lure affluent international travelers by undergoing renovations.

Skift Note: For more context on investors worrying about top-line risks and hotel investment, see Skift’s report from the ALIS conference “What to Expect From U.S. Hotel Dealmaking in 2023: Trophy Sales and Trauma.”

Tuesday, January 24

Truist said they are finding the sentiment at the ALIS Lodging Conference as mostly positive, with lots of “hope” that the most well-anticipated recession in the history of recessions will be a mild one. CoStar’s HNN said leaders are all-out bullish on the health of the industry. Truist said the tone is that leisure is still strong while business travel sentiment is much more mixed. Labor growth appears to be moderating Development financing is still there with Truist describing CMBS as alive and well with plenty of expensive (8%+ interest) money available. Hilton’s new Spark brand is getting a lot of attention with analysts and reporters saying positive things.

STR and Tourism Economics made a modest upgrade to the 2023 U.S. hotel forecast released at ALIS. Additionally, a subsequent downward adjustment was made for 2024. The projections for ADR (average daily rate) and RevPAR (revenue per available room) were lifted by 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.

Looking back, according to 2022 data from STR, the U.S. hotel industry reported ADR and RevPAR that were the highest for any year on record for the full year. 2022 (percentage change from 2019): Occupancy: 62.7% (-4.9%); ADR $148.83 (+13.6%); and RevPAR $93.27 (+8.1%). Canada’s hotel ADR and RevPAR were the highest for any year on record, according to STR’s 2022 data. 

Skift Note: It’s notable that STR, the gold standard for hotel performance benchmarking, has upwardly revised its estimate of average daily rates generated. The CEO of Aimbridge Hospitality, the largest third-party manager of hotels in the Western world, said at the ALIS conference that trends are going in a direction where his company’s properties may beat STR’s forecasts for the first quarter by some percentage points thanks to better-than-expected demand.

Wednesday, January 25

Town Officials of Atlantic Beach, South Carolina are considering the construction of a new 21-story oceanfront luxury hotel and condo building. The new building, named “The Black Pearl of the Atlantic” would feature 168 hotel rooms, 36 short-term rental units, 24 luxury-condo units, and 420 parking spaces within a nearby 11-story parking garage. The $80 million project is being proposed by Morant Properties LLC. 

Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced the debut of the Destination by Hyatt brand in the United Kingdom with SCHLOSS Roxburghe. The historic estate has recently gone through an extensive transformation, including the addition of a spa, 58 new rooms and suites in the newly constructed extension The Estate House, and 12 cottages. Formerly owned by the Duke of Roxburghe, the countryside retreat offers a total of 78 guest rooms and suites as well as 12 two-bedroom cottages. Looking ahead, the property is set to introduce 50 additional cottages, planned to be available starting in 2023. 

BWH Hotel Group is expanding its upscale, chic boutique band, Aiden, as the brand is set to grow by over 200% in the years ahead with the portfolio doubling in 2023 alone. Highlights of the brand growth include the upcoming launch of Aiden in India and the launch of Aiden in Scandinavia, where 30 new hotels have been added to the portfolio, each of which offers groundbreaking hologram concierge service. The projected growth includes the opening of 30 hotels in Scandinavia in partnership with CIC Hospitality, welcoming the Aiden brand to the region.

Skift Note: This week saw a flurry of announcements of planned hotel pipeline expansions worldwide.

Thursday, January 26

Hoteliers in Thailand were pleased to hear the Cabinet approved a revised subsidy scheme to stimulate domestic tourism, expecting 112,000 eligible people to exercise their rights and generate 12.5 billion baht worth of spending. The cabinet agreed to afifth phase of the “We Travel Together” hotel subsidy campaign worth 3.95 billion baht to promote domestic tourism, as proposed by the ministry. 2.01 billion baht is allocated for the fifth phase of the campaign to promote domestic tourism for a total of 560,000 rooms. Another 1.93 billion baht goes to stimulate overseas and domestic tourism activities. Participants in the scheme pay 60% of the normal hotel room rate with the government responsible for the rest as well as an e-voucher worth 600 baht per room per day to be spent at shops such as food outlets and traditional Thai massage venues. The revised scheme caps spending at 3,000 baht per person while the number of room nights is reduced to five rooms per person per night from 10 in the fourth phase.

Skift Note: Thailand has been constantly rethinking its approach to post-pandemic inbound international tourism. It now seems to want to open the door wide and encourage as much recovery of market share as possible. Competition with Vietnam may be one reason. Domestic stability for businesses may be another.