Hyatt Partners With SLH To Expand Their Footprint
Hyatt Hotels has been my go-to hotel chain for almost a decade now. When I first started staying at Hyatt properties, they had a footprint issue. They were in much fewer total markets than their competitors. Fast forward to present day. They still have a much smaller property count than Marriott (especially with the acquisition of SPG). But, they have properties in many more markets than they used to.
Look, I’m a “quality over quantity” sort of guy. I make the argument that Marriott’s 4 mediocre hotels in Williamsburg, VA doesn’t make them 4 times better than Hyatt there. I only need one mediocre property per market, I promise. Recently, Hyatt rolled out a partnership with Oasis, a home-sharing brand, that added a few new cities to the map. At the time I thought, “Wow! Wouldn’t it be great if Hyatt could do this in a whole bunch of markets?” They might have.
Hyatt Announced Partnership With Small Luxury Hotels Of The World
Hyatt announced this new partnership today with Small Luxury Hotels of the World. It was short on details and long on upside. Here’s a quote from the press release:
Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) and Small Luxury Hotels of the World™ (SLH) today announced plans to bring World of Hyatt members opportunities to enjoy loyalty benefits in many more places. The launch is targeted for the end of the year.
Hyatt, a leading hospitality company with more than 700 hotels worldwide, and SLH, a collection of more than 500 independently owned luxury hotels around the world, are working together to offer World of Hyatt members the opportunity to earn and redeem points during stays at participating SLH hotels when they book through Hyatt channels.
Let’s Translate
It’s going to be a few months before we know what SLH properties will be part of this new partnership. Once we do, we can better evaluate how good this is. Being able to earn points (and elite credit) as well as redeem points at hundreds of SLH properties would be a huge win. If my math is right, there’s something like 30 countries that have an SLH property where there’s no current Hyatt presence.
Here’s a property on the Amalfi coast:
And another in Venice:
Up until now, I’ve always satisfied my love of Italy and my desire to stay on points by frequenting the incredible Hotel Danieli in Venice:
The Final Two Pennies
The devil is always in the details, isn’t it? This announcement is an exciting one. But, we won’t really know the impact until they announce the participating properties. Hyatt gains a lot of legitimacy if they can bring most of the SLH properties onboard. They already have fantastic hotels overseas for leisure travel (see Park Hyatt Vienna). The criticism from some folks is that they don’t have enough of these wonderful properties. SLH can fill in a bunch of those gaps. Will they?
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This absolutely would add some value to WOH. The big question, at least for me, is to what degree elite benefits would be honored. If zero Globalist benefits were honored, that would make this a marginal addition, at least for me. Another point would be price and availability of award nights. If the Danieli has only 2 rooms that would qualify for an award night, getting one or both of those rooms would be very difficult, and that would wipe out a lot of the benefit of the hotel being in the program.
Christian, we’re mostly in agreement on this. I actually think that even if they don’t recognize many Globalist benefits the expansion of the footprint would be a HUGE plus.