Hyatt Looks to Put Rough Winter Behind With More Group Meeting Bookings in 2021
Photo Credit: Prolonged recoveries in corporate travel and group meetings stung Hyatt in the first quarter. Wikimedia / Mike from Midwest
Skift Take
Hyatt needs — not wants — corporate travel and conventions to recover quickly to avoid further quarters of hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars. Hybrid meetings are a good first step.
It wasn’t a great start to the year for Hyatt, but the company’s leaders hope rolling out hybrid in-person and digital meetings and events can soften further financial blows while they await non-leisure travel to come back to life.
The company, like most hotel groups, sees plenty of reasons for optimism around leisure travel, which was back to 2019 levels of demand across Hyatt hotels toward the end of March. The company’s resorts even garnered higher daily rates than in 2019.
But Hyatt’s hotels heavily skew toward business travel and events and finding a way to get those sectors back is vital to the company’s recovery trajectory. The two segments were only at 20 percent of pre-pandemic levels for the month of March.
“While we share trends that are encouraging, we are fully aware that group and business transient demand needs to improve meaningfully to reach a full recovery,” Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian said Wednesday on an investor call.
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