If you look at US hotel companies by the number of properties, Hyatt isn’t anywhere near the top of the list. People are way more likely to find a Wyndham, Marriott, Hilton, or IHG hotel before they’ll ever find a Hyatt. Not everything is measured by numbers and Hyatt tends to get extra attention because their hotel quality, from the Park Hyatts to Hyatt Places, is generally higher than other brands.
Quality over quantity isn’t going to get more guests. You need to have hotels where people travel, which is Hyatt’s Achilles heel. That’s why I was excited to read that Hyatt is expanding in the Americas and adding 45 new hotels in 2022 and 2023 across many of its existing brands.
That’s right. Forty-five.
For Hyatt, that’s a decent chunk of hotels and will increase the portfolio size by 5%. They’re moving into 11 new markets and adding hotels to 19 others.
It still doesn’t move the brand into the upper tier. A number of these new properties are all-inclusive resorts in Mexico, which doesn’t do much to get away from being the brand where you go for a single stay to becoming someone’s consistent hotel chain.
For Marriott or Hilton, 45 properties are a rounding error. The fact that Hyatt adding that number of properties is major news shows that it’s still a secondary player.
I’m not saying that I don’t like staying at Hyatt Hotels. Our visits (well, except this one) have been above average and several have been much better than expected. They have some truly unique properties that I’m looking forward to visiting. It’s just I’d like to stay with them more but can’t because they’re not always where I’m going. No matter how nice it is, I’m not going to drive an extra 30 minutes to stay at a Hyatt Place instead of a Residence Inn or Holiday Inn Express.
It seems like Hyatt’s trying to go for the destination vacation and not for the everyday stay. Their properties will need to be substantially better than the competition to pry people away from other chains they’re accustomed to visiting.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Want to sponsor a post, write something for Your Mileage May Vary or put ads on our site? Click here for more info.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and sign up to get emailed notifications of when we post.
Whether you’ve read our articles before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
4 comments
I’d love to be a loyal World of Hyatt elite, I truly would. Their hotels have always been nice (all the way back to my first stay with them at Ricky’s Hyatt House in Palo Alto, CA (1969). But, they are not everywhere I need to be. Sadly, not even close. However, there’s always a Marriott, IHG or Hilton brand where I am going – so those are ultimately my choices. If Hyatt grows somewhat larger, I’ll more seriously consider them. However, my business travels are usually to places like Chattanooga or western PA or Rochester or suburban St. Louis. Not a lot of Hyatts in these places; for example, only 2 in the entire St. Louis metro. Since time is of the essence when traveling for business, Hyatt is usually out of the question. It’s too bad because they’re generally great hotels.
I agree it would be nice if Hyatt had more properties, but let’s not fall for the fallacy that number of properties is the most important criteria for a hotel chain. Case in point: Marriott. Have you been #Bonvoyed today? One might argue that having more properties makes it harder for corporate to control in terms of loyalty benefits.
If we’re going by sheer numbers, Wyndham, Choice and Best Western would all be ahead of Hyatt. And while we all agree of Marriott’s problems keeping hotels in line, Hyatt is not without rogue operators who like to push the limits of what’s allowed under the guidelines.
Agree with JoeHG. Wyndham, Choice, BW, and IHG are way ahead of Hyatt for me. Hyatt is never where I want to go.
I like the idea of some of these nice stays like Miraval but tbh my husband really is not into it, we rather just stay close to a national park and enjoy that