Hyatt Looks To “Crazy Rich Asians” For Growth

Hyatt is targetting those “Crazy Rich Asians” (my words, not Hyatt’s) for growth as it sees expanding opportunities in Asia spanning from India to Japan.

Hyatt Looks East To Asia For Growth

In the final quarter of 2024, the growth in revenue per available room (RevPAR) in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding “Greater China”) was 12%, outperforming every other world region.

Mark Hoplamazian, the President and CEO of Hyatt, told the Singapore Straits Times:

“We expect our hotel properties in the Asia-Pacific excluding Greater China to have the strongest growth in RevPAR of any of our geographic regions as they benefit from significant inbound international travel and favorable exchange rates. We really feel good about where we stand. We are optimistic about our openings in Asia.”

In the first six weeks of 2025, Hyatt Hotels opened 9,000 rooms, about 40% of its planned net room growth for 2025. Since 2017, Hyatt has doubled its luxury rooms, tripled resort rooms, and quintupled lifestyle rooms worldwide. It operates more than 300 hotels in the Asia-Pacific region with another 200 in development. Per Hoplamazian:

“That is one of the highest ratios of new hotels to existing properties in the company. We expect more than 50 (Asia) openings in 2025 alone. Relative growth here is going to be much higher for a sustained period of time. Personally, I would love to be based here.”

By here he meant Singapore, where Hyatt has recently opened the Grand Hyatt Singapore after a long remodel and now runs The Standard in Singapore as well. Hoplamazian added, “Singapore – and our customer base – deserve it. Singapore has become more essential to global finance and commerce. I want to continue growing, in the right way.”

From India to Japan, Hyatt sees opportunities. Speaking of India, Tom Pritzker, the chairman of Hyatt, recently said:

“The Indian market is absolutely on fire. Business is booming dramatically. It is on the cusp of a 20-year growth run. We are really the only US hospitality company with direct investment in properties in India. The country is so under-hoteliered and we have 55 hotels open and another 45 are in the pipeline. We could have five times that number, and should.”

(throughout much of the rest of Asia, though, Hyatt licenses its brand rather than owns properties)

When asked about balancing  innovation investment and cost containment, Hoplamazian saw no tension:

“That is a false choice. The applications of systems, and leaning on how to serve our guests better is an unlock to the top line, which can be unlimited. If you have 50 dollars of revenue and 30 dollars of costs, theoretically you can cut 30 and be done. But what if that 50 dollars (of revenue) became a 100 dollars by introducing new experiences, and so forth?”

Hyatt continues to grow and its leadership continues to say the right things…will it continue to be the viable alternative to Marriott and Hilton in delivering a growing global footprint, meaningful benefits in exchange for loyalty, and not just more properties in the portfolio, but outstanding properties from efficiency to luxury?

I sure hope so.