Hyatt Hotels Shift Toward A More Brand-Focused Organization

Forbes

08-07-2025

Each brand becomes more amplified with unique personas. getty
Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced a record pipeline of approximately 138,000 rooms as of year-end 2024, alongside a strategic brand realignment designed to enhance owner returns and accelerate growth. By evolving its brand architecture into five distinct portfolios – Luxury, Lifestyle, Inclusive, Classics and Essentials – Hyatt believes it is better positioned to serve the unique needs of its guests, customers and owners, while aligning expertise and resources to deliver exceptional value.
"Hyatt's growth and strategic brand evolution reflect our commitment to creating long-term value for owners and driving the performance of our hotels by delivering distinctive experiences for travelers," says Mark Hoplamazian, President & Chief Executive Officer, Hyatt. "By focusing on this evolution, we are not only enhancing guest satisfaction but also strengthening our hotels' success and competitive advantage, driving preference among owners, guests, customers and World of Hyatt members."
Lalvani says that the brands will come into clearer focus. Hyatt Hotels
Hyatt's new Lifestyle President & Creative Director, Amar Lalvani , recently spoke about the decision to move in this direction.
It means that both business and leisure guests will more clearly feel the distinction in design and experience delivery between our brands. Each will become more amplified with their unique personalities, occupying their own unique spaces, connecting with guests in unique ways, often the same guest depending on their mood. Whether it be the bold and irreverent 'anything but' standardness of The Standard, the juxtaposed classics done with a twist at Thompson, the locally enriching culture and environments of Andaz, the unabashed fun of Dream, the soulful sense of place of Bunkhouse or the privacy and generosity of The Manner, each of our brands will differentiate themselves more clearly from each other and anything else in the market.
Each of the brands will differentiate themselves more clearly. Thompson Central Park
As the brands come into clearer focus, they will manifest themselves across all guest touch points from design, restaurants and bars, room service, service style, music, lighting, cultural, uniforms, social and cultural programming, as well as wellness. Most importantly, though, it's the team we build in each hotel who are there day in and day out connecting with our guests that make the experience special. So we spend an enormous amount of time on talent selection and development. This has been a wonderful area of alignment with Hyatt and their purpose of caring for people so they can be their best. If we live that purpose, market share and profitability will follow.
Each hotel brand will posses a unique character. Credit Thompson Palm Springs Describe some of your plans for creating hotels that change the social and cultural fabric of a market.
One approach that I bring from my history with The Standard, Bunkhouse and now The Manner hotels is that each one is created with incredible attention to detail and care after understanding the social dynamics and micro location in each market. That understanding influences the design (including the selection of the interior designer), the restaurant and bar/nightlife offerings (including the selection of chefs or other collaborators), the playlists, the uniforms, the selection of the General Manager and the executive team, the retail program, the list goes on and on.
This mentality along with the team that does this incredibly creative and painstaking work will now be applied to the entire Hyatt Lifestyle Group portfolio. It is this approach to development that created places that changed the social and cultural fabric of Brussels or Singapore to use two examples (we just opened The Standard, Brussels and The Standard, Singapore).
This has been the case for The Standard throughout its history — where you think about what we did in the Meatpacking District, Kings Cross and Bangkok. And clearly Bunkhouse has done this very successfully as well in Austin, even a place like Todos Santos where Hotel San Cristobal became an unexpected anchor for that community. In fact, there we set up a pop-up hospitality school to the wonderful residents in hospitality. In terms of the future, we are bringing that same approach to an emerging expo district of Shanghai where we are opening our first Thompson hotel in Asia.
Resorts will manifest themselves across all guest touch points. Credit Andaz Scottsdale
A lot has gone into that hotel to connect the development and our team on the ground (most of whom have never been to a Thompson hotel or any lifestyle) to culturally relevant collaborators to bring the concept to life. The building itself, where we locate it, how we design it has an impact on the neighborhood. The lasting impact comes from the team that is there to bring the unique character we are known for along with the creative energy of our guests. MORE FROM FORBES Forbes The Uber-Rich Are Flocking To This Small Mountain Town By Roger Sands Forbes How To Best Experience The Great American Road Trip By Roger Sands