Interview: Hyatt Senior Vice President Of Sales Jack Horne

Hyatt Hotels Corp., not so long ago known primarily for its upper upscale flagship-brand properties and resorts, has become a major player in the select-service and extended-stay tiers as well. In 2004, it acquired AmeriSuites, which it converted to its rapidly expanding Hyatt Place brand. Soon after, it acquired Summerfield Suites, a brand it last year rechristened Hyatt House, following its purchase of LodgeWorks' extended-stay portfolio. Hyatt senior vice president of sales Jack Horne recently spoke with Business Travel News lodging editor Michael B. Baker about how these new brands have affected Hyatt's relationships with corporate clients, the company's investment in its full-service portfolio and the latest with its nascent Andaz luxury brand.

Did Hyatt see more interest from corporate buyers this past negotiating season?

The numbers are phenomenal on the business travel side. With the momentum we have with Hyatt Place, our year-over-year corporate acceptance is up 35 percent. It might be because others are more mature and we're still expanding, but the numbers have been really healthy. We've been able to get into programs we've never been able to get into before, because you have a different price point with Hyatt Place, and we have locations where we didn't have hotels before. You can't underestimate the power of distribution.

Have you increased your sales force?

On the transient side, we had 14 individuals. Today we have 24, so we've almost doubled it. On the group side, we added five new positions this year, three of them on the small meetings side. We have a whole small meetings desk in Omaha [for meetings of] 50 rooms or less, and it's exploding.

How is the conversion going from Summerfield Suites to Hyatt House?

The brand's been announced, but as far as the conversions go, it's not completed at all. There are a number of physically different hotels: They were Summerfield Suites, they were Sierras, they were Woodfins. There is a goal to be done with the conversions by the end of the year, so we're getting there. [The LodgeWorks acquisition] certainly helped us change the brand and got us into 17 locations where we didn't have any Hyatt House products at all.

Why change from Summerfield to Hyatt House?

Our customer research told us people didn't identify with Summerfield. They still identified it with Wyndham. They didn't know what Hyatt Summerfield Suites was. It didn't say extended stay, so we were trying to clarify that.

What's happening on the full-service side?

This past year was a pretty big year in terms of what we did with our owned and equity properties. We're just finishing the renovation at [New York's] Grand Hyatt, spending $131 million there. We just finished in late December the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, which is an 80 percent convention hotel, spending $65 million there. The Grand Hyatt San Francisco, with which we're halfway done and will be done by end of this year, is another $70 million. The Hyatt Regency San Antonio on the River Walk and the [Chicago] Park Hyatt just finished a renovation for all guest rooms. We've spent about $300 million in our owned assets. It's really been a catalyst to go to third-party owners and say that this is what we're doing and this is what our expectations are for when it's time to renovate your properties. We're about to launch the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, a total redo there, which has a third-party owner. By doing this, a lot of people see these things going on, and hopefully that drives owners' preferences when they're building hotels or changing flags to move toward Hyatt.

What's the next step for Hyatt Place?

We're 200 strong, and about 40 percent of them are owned and managed. It's been a category killer in its class. Out of the 200, we have 70 that enjoy the number-one revenue per available room ranking in their competitive set. It's hard to do, and I wish we had those kinds of numbers on the full-service side. The big push now is to go abroad with them. We've announced India, and we're going into China with them and some other areas: Panama City and Latin America. We want to go into urban markets in the United States as well, places like downtown Chicago and New York City. Between Hyatt House and Hyatt Place, it really has enabled [Hyatt loyalty program] Gold Passport to grow. Those numbers are up 25 percent over the last two years, so as this distribution has come, so has loyalty to the brand, which has helped full-service as well.

Are you seeing much development with Andaz?

What happened in New York put Andaz on the map. We opened in West Hollywood and took over the Ivy in San Diego, and they're fabulous hotels, but in Wall Street and particularly Fifth Avenue, people got excited about the brands from the development standpoint. We opened up in Shanghai last October. We're under construction in Wailea [Maui] right now. We're going to open at this summer in Amsterdam and Costa Rica at the end of 2013. We also have properties underway in Turks and Caicos, Delhi and Jaipur.