Hyatt CEO Interview: Bigger Isn’t (Always) Better and Loyalty Is More Than Points
Photo Credit: Mark Hoplamazian, President and CEO of Hyatt, at the Andaz Tokyo. Hyatt Hotels / Hyatt Corporation
Skift Take
As anyone in media knows right now, scale is not always the solution and confidence in what you do well is rarely a bad idea. Hyatt's rethink of both loyalty beyond points and branding beyond the nightly stay will help it differentiate its product.
Hyatt Hotels Corporation is not the biggest hotel chain.
At 611 hotel properties and 162,336 rooms, Hyatt is no Marriott (with Starwood: 1.1 million rooms, 5,500 hotel properties, and 30 brands), InterContinental Hotels Group (750,000 rooms, 4,500 properties, and 10 brands), Wyndham Worldwide (678,000 rooms, 7,800 properties, and 16 brands), or even Hilton Worldwide (750,000 rooms, 4,500 properties, and 11 brands).
It's a mini-major, a big boutique, or something in between. Or as CEO Mark Hoplamazian told attendees of last fall's Skift Global Forum, it's a bit of humanity mixed with empathy, that happens to sell some high-end hotel rooms. It also doesn't do bad financially. Along with quarterly reports that reveal solid earnings, if you divide Hyatt's market cap by number of rooms, it beats out every competitor by more than $10,000 a room, including Airbnb and HomeAway, too.
That's not to say it likely wouldn't mind getting bigger. Beyond ambitious projects like its new New Yo
