Hyatt CEO: Loyalty shouldn't leave hotel guests feeling 'objectified'
Hyatt CEO: Loyalty shouldn't leave hotel guests feeling 'objectified'
Hoplamazian says World of Hyatt seeks to create 'emotional relationships'
Hyatt Hotels Corp. President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian speaks at the 2026 International Hospitality Investment Forum EMEA in Berlin. (IHIF EMEA, Simon Callaghan Photography)
https://www.costar.com/article/635842219/hyatt-ceo-loyalty-shouldnt-leave-hotel-guests-feeling-objectified?
BERLIN — World of Hyatt has been the fastest-growing loyalty program among hotel brands in recent years, and Hyatt Hotels Corp. President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian says that's because the platform is built to prioritize connection over points.
During the 2026 International Hospitality Investment Forum EMEA, Hoplamazian said traditional points programs can sometimes be a barrier to building a lasting relationship with hotel guests.
"We conceived of it as an experience platform, not a points program, because oftentimes the most angry and irate guest emails I would get are when people feel objectified," he said. "They feel like this is just about a commercial transaction, and that's about as far away from the spirit of our culture as you can imagine."
That culture is reflected in how the company views everyone who works there as a "member of the Hyatt family," he said.
"It's based on emotional relationships, not on transactions," Hoplamazian said. "So from the very beginning, we thought about World of Hyatt being an aperture into many experiences."
During the company's most recent earnings call, executives announced World of Hyatt had surpassed 63 million members, and those members now account for roughly half the hotel rooms booked across the globe for the Chicago-based company.
While World of Hyatt is designed to be experience-focused, Hoplamazian said a lot of those experiences have been "heavily weighted toward well-being" because the platform was launched in 2017 — the same year the company purchased the Miraval brand.
"We see well-being as a means of carrying out our purpose as a company, which is to care for people so they can do their best," he said.
The next step for World of Hyatt will be the expansion of generative artificial intelligence as part of the platform, which the company debuted on Hyatt.com a year and a half ago. Hoplamazian said this will change how guests plan travel.
"So instead of searching by city, date, and room type, you are expressing an intent," he said.
For example, Hoplamazian described a family involved in a hypothetical trip, and then the important features of that trip.
"My wife and I, my 12-year-old son, and my 9-year-old daughter would like to go somewhere where it's 70 degrees or warmer, where there's a great golf course, and there's a beach and maybe a Michelin-starred restaurant within a five-minute drive," he said. "Then you hit return, and you get back a whole bunch of offerings and options. We're now advancing that to say, 'By the way, while you're considering these destinations, please also consider the fact that at this destination, you can do this kind of activity.'"
Hyatt is also making AI a bigger focus for internal use, offering a platform to operations teams that can help identify data trends and guide better decision-making in the business.
Hoplamazian said it can flag when certain segments have periods of softness in future bookings to general managers and allows them to dig deeper. But it's still early days.
"It learns from itself," he said. "Sometimes the signal is valid, and there's a good reason for it, and the team should do something about it, and sometimes [not]. That's how these models work. They learn at scale."
5 things to know for April 20
Today's headlines: Nearly 2,000 hospitality workers in Norway go on strike; Oman hotel industry hits revenue record for 2025; Berlin's Primestar enters luxury space with June Lux; Trump administration to begin tariff refunds; MGM Grand Las Vegas to close buffet
The MGM Grand Las Vegas will close its buffet on May 31. (Getty Images)
https://www.costar.com/article/1406755073/5-things-to-know-for-date?
By Bryan Wroten
1. Nearly 2,000 hospitality workers in Norway go on strike
As negotiations broke down between unions and the hospitality employers in Norway over the weekend, nearly 2,000 hotel and restaurant workers are on strike, the Sweden Herald reports. The strike affects more than 100 hotels and restaurants in Oslo and Bergen.
The sticking point during negotiations was wages as well as conditions for sick pay, the newspaper reports.
"Hotel and restaurant workers have some of the lowest salaries in the country, but they face the same food and rent costs as everyone else," said Dag-Einar Sivertsen, head of negotiations for the trade union Fellesforbundet. "Without a real wage increase, we see no other option than to strike."
2. Oman hotel industry hits revenue record for 2025
The hotel industry in Oman saw annual revenues reach 297.3 million Omani rial ($773.2 million) in 2025, a record high, the Oman Daily Observer reports, citing information from real estate consultancy Cavendish Maxwell. The country welcomed 2.4 million hotel guests last year, a 11% year-over-year increase.
"After a robust, record-breaking performance in 2025, Oman's hospitality sector entered this year with strong momentum," said Khalil al Zadjali, head of Oman at Cavendish Maxwell. "We are now in a phase of sustained growth, supported by a more diversified mix of source markets, rising domestic demand, and higher occupancy levels."
3. Berlin's Primestar enters luxury space with June Lux
Berlin-based hotel owner-operator Primestar has entered the luxury space with its newest brand, June Lux. In an interview with CoStar News Hotels' Terence Baker, Primestar chairman and co-owner Roland Rausch said the company already has three or four June Lux deals near completion.
“There is demand for luxury in Germany,” a market that often is described as price-sensitive, Rausch said, adding that 82% of Germany's overnight stays are from Germans themselves. He and his team analyzed 15 cities in Germany, and the conclusion is that they did not “have a lot of fresh product” in terms of hotels.
4. Trump administration to begin tariff refunds
The Trump administration will start the process to return more than $166 billion collected from the tariffs it enacted since April 2025 after the Supreme Court struck them down in February, the New York Times reports. Starting today, businesses can submit documentation to the federal government to recover the money they paid on these tariffs.
Only the companies that directly paid the tariffs are able to recover this money, however. That means the companies and consumers who bought these products further down the supply chain cannot apply.
"The extent to which consumers realize any gain hinges on whether businesses share the proceeds, something that few have publicly committed to do," the newspaper reports. "Some have started to band together in class-action lawsuits in the hopes of receiving a payout."
5. MGM Grand Las Vegas to close buffet
In another sign of changing food and beverage trends, the MGM Grand Las Vegas will close its buffet May 31, KLAS 8 News Now reports. Buffets were once a staple at resort casinos across the Las Vegas Strip, but they have since fallen in number, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
All-you-can-eat buffets were a way to draw in guests and keep them on property. Now, many resort casinos offer celebrity chef restaurants, food halls, and high-end dining.
Hotel profit margins are sinking. Can tech fix it?
https://hotelsmag.com/news/as-hotel-profit-margins-sink-tech-companies-step-in-to-right-the-ship/
by David Eisen
In January, at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit, in Los Angeles, one of the hotel industry’s worst-kept secrets was said aloud: “If somebody isn’t willing to be asset heavy, then the asset-light game stops.” It was uttered by Elie Maalouf, CEO of IHG Hotels & Resorts, during a panel session in front of the hotel investment community.
Its impact was immediate: an unvarnished articulation made by someone who the asset-light strategy benefits the most. Years ago, before hotel companies spun off their owned real estate and pivoted to franchising, lending their name and likeness in exchange for fees, they dealt with the same thorny issues that needle hotel owners today; namely, the costs associated with running hotels. According to CBRE, hotel expenses above gross operating profit increased 4.1% in 2024. Expenses below GOP rose 3.6%. Total revenue, meanwhile, grew 2.4%. The upshot: Costs are outdistancing revenue, and the pace isn’t waning.
In an era where costs are eating up the bottom line at an unprecedented speed, a shift in mentality from a revenue-only focus to one predicated on cost containment and profitability drive is paramount. Duetto, with roots as a revenue-management platform that has leaned further into profit optimization, held its “PERFORM” summit in Florida last week, a way to showcase its technology while also engaging with customers and partner tech. The message is clear: In an era of expense creep and stagnating revenue, a focus on total profit optimization isn’t only smart, it’s compulsory.
Data backs up a profit-minded approach. According to Duetto, over the last six years, RevPAR growth has climbed 19% against a backdrop where booking costs and labor costs have risen 25% and 20% in the same span, respectively. From 2024 to 2025, total revenue per available room, or TrevPAR, increased 3.6%. The bad news: expenses associated with credit card commissions paid, IT systems, sales and marketing, loyalty programs, and P&M supplies and labor have all risen above 5%. The math, as they say, doesn’t math.
Alex Zoghlin, CEO of Duetto, was hired last June, three months after Duetto made a strategic investment to acquire HotStats, a firm dedicated to benchmarking profitability. The profit strategy was underway—it’s something he said as much during the summit. “Most of the KPIs that we all still use focus on revenue, which do not incentivize looking at the bigger picture,” he said. “The way that we operate needs a new playbook—this really starts by shifting the focus from room revenue and yield to overall hotel performance.”
Historically, RevPAR, a metric that measured how much revenue was generated per room, but discounted revenue coming from other sources, was the most-relied-upon barometer of a hotel’s performance, an easy calculation of rate and occupancy. The more complex hotels got, the more food and beverage became a focal point, the more meetings business—the more ancillary opportunities—the less reliant RevPAR became as a KPI to explain the totality of a hotel’s performance, especially since it also didn’t take expense items into account.
“Today, two hotels with identical RevPAR can have completely different profitability,” said Zoghlin, offering that one could be superior in driving direct business, while managing acquisition costs, keeping margins intact. “The other,” he said, “watches profits bleed out.”
The destination might be the same, but getting to it can be straightforward or circuitous. Consider two hotels with the same $100 RevPAR: It doesn’t mean that both hotels will net the same profit. If hotel A gets to a $100 RevPAR with an occupancy approach that requires more labor, then its gross operating profit per available room will surely be lower than the hotel that builds its RevPAR with a rate-led approach that, subsequently, requires less staffing. Taken further, if the former hotel relied more on OTAs than direct bookings to fill its rooms, it faces further margin compression, while the hotel that fills its rooms via direct channels attains better flow through, or how much of each dollar gained on the top line makes its way to the bottom line.
Shifting to a profit-focused strategy requires buy-in from every level of a hotel, Zoghlin offered, aligning teams on the same goals—from marketing and sales to distribution and revenue management. “You need to communicate and break down those siloes,” he said. “Teams must be confident in the new metrics that they use, that they’re tracking and understand the impact that each of them has.” He calls it “performance engineering.”
In Practice
Duetto is fast down the profitability path. It’s not alone. Bangkok-based Minor Hotels, an owner and operator of hotels, with brands including Anantara and NH Hotels, has bought into a profit strategy to drive its hotels’ performance, moving away from room-only KPI consideration to total revenue and total profitability, with net RevPAR as a truer measure of success, said Irene Villafranca, VP of commercial strategy and systems at Minor Hotels Europe & Americas.
The Sandman Hotel Group is leveraging data to help drive profitability, said its senior director of revenue management and distribution, Michael McNames. “Technology allows for instantaneous results in profitability,” he said. Consider Duetto’s GameChanger tool, which prices rooms based on the value of each booking and sets rates based on room type, booking channel and customer segment. Meanwhile, HotStats allows hotels to benchmark their P&L to competitor sets.
The “How Hospitality Leaders Are Winning Now” panel addressed smarter operations driving better profit. From left, moderator Glenn Haussman; Katie Moro of Amadeus; Michale McNames of Sandman Hotel Group; Irene Villafranca of Minor Hotels; and Chris Cylke of RevPAR International.
Chris Cylke, president and COO of asset manager REVPAR International, is the first to recognize the preeminence of benchmarking profitability. Still, for an industry that has been a poster child for slow adoption to technology, getting to a profit-first mentality takes time. “Certain companies are taking key initiatives and integrating profit services, but some brands and management companies are dragging behind,” said Cylke.
The case for getting to better profitability stems from, first, deriving better revenue. Because, as Cylke suggested, not all revenue is created equal. It also comes from a full review and grasp of expenses. “It’s about understanding costs and actioning on it from a pricing strategy,” said Katie Moro, VP of data partnerships, hospitality at Amadeus. She added that the expectation is for more hotels to also move to attribute-based selling, a hospitality strategy that unbundles hotel rooms into individual components, allowing guests to customize their stay by selecting specific features, such as a high floor, balcony, or specific view—rather than booking a pre-defined room category.
“Driving profitability is all about data and how to get in the right tools,” added Moro. Amadeus Demand360, for instance, provides data on future hotel occupancy, traveler segmentation, and benchmarking. Amadeus Agency360 is a travel intelligence solution that offers hoteliers insights into agent bookings across GDS, OTA, and direct channels.
Growing revenue is the first step toward ensuring profitability, which is why there has been such a premium of late on the role of chief commercial officer. Teams aligned to deliver revenue matter, but just as important is being aligned on the bottom line—the commercial team, the finance team, the operations team, to “find the optimal flow that generates profit,” Cylke said.
It’s not easy; it takes time; it’s paramount. “Ultimately,” he said, “the hotel owner takes the bottom line to the bank.”
Minor debuting Colbert Collection in London
The WestDill Mayfair Hotel London, Colbert Collection will be part of Minor’s new premium soft brand and will open later this year as an adaptive reuse in London.
https://www.hotelinvestmenttoday.com/Development/Brands/Minor-debuting-Colbert-Collection-in-London?
LONDON — Bangkok-based Minor Hotels is opening its first Colbert Collection property in the U.K. with the 50-key The WestDill Mayfair Hotel London, Colbert Collection, which will open in London in the fourth quarter of this year.
Minor said the signing represents a key strategic step for the company in London with the Colbert Collection, one of Minor’s new premium soft brands.
The property is owned by the Royal Group of Companies Singapore, an international investor and developer with more than 70 years of expertise in the hotel and property segment. The company’s hotel portfolio includes properties in Asia and the Pacific region, as well as shopping malls, offices, and industrial and residential properties. The Colbert Collection hotel in London will be the group’s first venture into Europe.
The hotel is located on Piccadilly in central London. The property was formerly the NatWest bank and offices and is being converted to a hotel. The building was designed in 1922–23, and Minor said its transformation reflects a broader West End renaissance, where historic commercial landmarks are being reimagined for a new generation.
The Colbert Collection is a global portfolio of hotels united by a passion for authentic culinary moments and visual arts. Minor said the brand is inspired by the spirit of Parisian boulevard cafés, and each hotel will express its individuality through curated experiences.
Minor Hotels owns The Wolseley Hospitality Group, operating in the U.K. with restaurants including The Wolseley, The Delaunay, Colbert, and Zedel, in addition to operating one hotel in the country.
Last year, Minor said it was launching four new brands to support aggressive growth plans and enable it to expand into new markets. The new brands include The Wolseley Hotels, a luxury brand based on the iconic Piccadilly restaurant in London; the luxury soft brand Minor Reserve Collection; the premium soft brand Colbert Collection; and the tech-driven, select-service iStay Hotels.
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