Hyatt Hotels Sees 2023 as Breakout Year for Europe and China

Hyatt Hotels Corp. raised its financial outlook for the year ahead, calling out expected strength in Europe and Asia Pacific as especially key factors for its hotels and resorts, which skew to premium and luxury segments.

"This is really the breakout year for Europe," said President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian on an earnings call Thursday. "I thought 2022 was going to be the breakout year for Europe. I was off by a year. We're seeing people come back to travel, including business travel, in a more pronounced way relative to 2019."

The Chicago, Illinois-based hotel operator has also been expanding its footprint in Asia Pacific, where it expects to see a strong recovery this year from the pandemic as China rebounds.

The company's room count in Asia Pacific was 46 percent larger as of March 30 than it was in March 2019.

Now that pandemic restrictions have been lifted, the main force holding back Asia Pacific's recovery of international travel has been a lack of flight capacity. But airlines are adding flights for the rest of the year.

"When you think about the tailwind of when those when that flight capacity returns into China, there is there's a lot of room for growth in the regions," said