Why Hyatt Is Betting Big on Midscale Hotels

In this episode of Check-In with Bryan, Bryan Fish sits down with Jason Ballard, SVP and Global Brand Leader for the Essentials Portfolio at Hyatt Hotels Corporation.

Jason shares how Hyatt is expanding into new markets through brands like Hyatt Studios, Hyatt Select, Caption by Hyatt, Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Unscripted by Hyatt, and UrCove. The conversation dives into Hyatt’s approach to midscale and upper-midscale growth, owner-focused development, conversion strategy, brand discipline, guest experience, and what it takes to build hotel brands that actually work in the real world.

They also discuss Jason’s 20+ year career at Hyatt, how hospitality creates long-term opportunity, why travel changes people, and the leadership lessons he has learned from working across revenue management, operations, analytics, brand development, and global hotel strategy.

Topics covered:

* Hyatt’s growth in the essentials and midscale hotel space
* The strategy behind Hyatt Studios and Hyatt Select
* Why conversion brands are becoming more important
* How Hyatt thinks about owners, operators, and development costs
* Building hotels around real operational feedback
* The future of hotel loyalty and guest experience
* What makes Hyatt’s brand approach different
* Career lessons from 20+ years in hospitality
* Why travel and hospitality still matter

If you’re a hotel owner, developer, operator, investor, or hospitality professional, this conversation offers a deep look into where the hotel industry is heading and how one of the world’s most respected hospitality brands is thinking about growth.

Subscribe for more conversations with leaders across hospitality, hotel ownership, operations, development, branding, and business strategy.

#hoteldevelopment #hotelownership #hotelbrands #hospitalityleadership, #hotelconversions #midscale#hotels #HyattEssentials 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:47

And the remote management operations, analytics, and global brand development, and shares a little bit of lessons that we've helped to think about people, brands, and the long game. This episode of Check In with Brian is brought to you by Reliance Hospitality, hospitality consulting, project management, and business process outsourcing, built exclusively for the owner's side of the table. Learn more at RelianceHospitality.com. As promised, we're sitting down with Jason Ballard, SVP of which I have to get this correct. I have to read this because I don't want to screw this up. SVP global brand leader for the essentials portfolio at Hyatt Hotels Corporation. Nailed it. 20 plus years at Hyatt. As of last month. As of last month. Yes. And you've been around the world. I have. With Hyatt. And now you've got seven brands that you're leading. Captured by Hyatt, Hyatt House, Hyatt Plays, Hyatt Select, Hyatt Studios, Unscripted by Hyatt, and Your Cove, which is in China. Exactly. Perfect. Your research is spot on. My research is fantastic. Tyler did a really good job when he Tyler for us. But you and I met with someone working on a Hyatt Studios project. That's right. Which I remember telling you at that point, I was like, I just don't know how like this essentials thing getting into the mid-scale space is actually going to work out because everybody thinks of Hyatt as luxury, because Hyatt's played in luxury. That's right. For so long. What in the last two and a half years? All these new products have been showing up and things are going well. The pipeline's really, really strong. It's fantastic. Is it's uh 150,000 rooms right now globally, is what I the last number I have.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

That's we we dropped that yesterday, indeed, in our press release. And uh in the US, two-thirds of that pipeline is in the essentials. So we are we are the growth engine for Hyatt for the next decade ahead.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

That's amazing. Yes. And interesting, I don't know if you know this, because I thought this was very interesting. Because I always get interested, pipeline numbers can look great. Right. But the reality is we all know every deal doesn't end up opening. That's true. As of I think this number was as of end of the first quarter of this year, Hyatt was sitting right on par with Hilton at converting 7% of the pipeline annually into actually open rooms. Whereas Marriott IHG, even IHG opened a record of almost like 500 hotels last year. Yes. They still came in below the conversion rate when you compare signings to uh actual opens. That's great. So Hyatt is performing very strong. For sure. And a lot of people are surprised by that. Which I was surprised too when I started working on things a couple years ago. But it's been great to see how the brands continue to push ahead. It's going to be amazing to see what happens because especially with some of these like unscripted collection and all of that coming on board, it's completely new space. And it's not the Regency of the past. No. With Atrium and all of that.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yes. So we still have those wonderful hotels, but now we'll have a complement of many other stay occasions. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Which your first one launched was Hyatt Studios. Yes. Um, how many locations are open right now?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

We have five locations open. Perfect. Um in the southeast and some in the north. We have California coming soon as well. So spreading significantly a lot of hotels under construction. Um we've been coming in at a build cost that is right where we'd want to be perfect for the scale. So we have a good return on investment and excited to see the pipeline continue to grow. So this uh first quarter we had record signings for Hyatt, best quarter of our entire history in signings for Essentials, which is amazing. And that is, of course, predominantly due to the launching of Hyatt Studios and Hyatt Select and Unscripted, which all debuted in 2025. So it was a very busy year for Team Essentials.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

That's amazing. So we're in New York City right now. We are. You're here for the NYU conference. What has what have you learned this week? What have your big big takeaways been?

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah, it was really nice to see the CEO panel. Um, I think they continue to talk kind of about the K-shaped economy and how um, you know, the luxury and lifestyle spend continues to be impressive. And I think Hyatt has benefited from that because, as you mentioned earlier, we kind of over-indexed compared to other brands on that quality of product and customer. So we have seen significant growth in that space. I think the interesting part about Hyatt is because we are not as saturated as other brands in the essential space, we're also seeing growth in that segment where others might have uh a little bit of decline. Right. And I think with these new brand entrants and new products that we're bringing into the space, being new is always best. Right. Because we know we have fresh, you know, new hotels and people love that and they're willing to spend a little bit more money on that. Right. And by the way, our guests are the reasons that we built these brands, right? They were telling us, hey, we love Hyatt, and we do have needs for the Hyatt Regencies and the big Hream hotels and your lifestyle. You know, I personally love to have a birthday party at the Andas, but I also need soccer tournaments in in uh West Virginia with my son. Uh, and we didn't have a product for that, right? So I'm the same Hyatt guest. I have different stay occasions, and they were telling us you need more product and more markets. And so we've seen um great adoption from our loyalty guests coming to stay at the studios and new select hotels we've opened, which is awesome to see.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Are you seeing on your development side, are you seeing developers that have been in the luxury space starting to get into the essential space, or do you feel like you're it's bringing new people into the Hyatt family?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

More so bringing new people in the Hyatt family. And I think that's what's exciting. What I've seen is a lot of pride from folks that are getting to build their first Hyatt, which like to me that's the most exciting part of my job, quite honestly, is meeting new people that have said, like, oh, I've always wanted to be a Hyatt owner and like now I have a chance to build a Hyatt in my hometown. Right. Right? Because now you have we have a product where the price point and the build cost can sustain a secondary or tertiary market where before we did not. Right. Right. So getting to meet these new owners and like hear their stories and you know their generational growth, you know, a lot of them coming from starting an economy and like moving their way up the chain scale, like to see their excitement and and being part of the Hyatt family is amazing. Right. No, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

I think it's I do think in the development circle, especially for single asset owners or small portfolio owners, they look at it now as it's almost replacing the Marriott of the world because people would get excited. Like Marriott's always been like a trophy for a lot of people that came up through the economy and mid-scale space. Like when they get to build their first Marriott, they're very excited. Yes. Whereas now Hyatt's kind of taking that because you have the option. That's right. Now, whereas before you just didn't have the option. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

So I think we'll connect with a whole new generation, you know, and there's a younger demographic that's in the hospitality space now that want to make their mark, and they can say, like, all right, I'm the first in the family to build a Hyatt. Right. I think that's super cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

No, that's awesome. Well, we'll get back to that in a little bit. All right. But let's talk about you. So you've been at you've been at Hyatt for 20 plus years. Yes. And uh Chicago's your home base. It is. Uh you've worked overseas with Hyatt in the past. Um, before we started today, you were talking about you just got to go back to Hong Kong for the first time since the before the pandemic. That's right. Yeah so what has kept you at Hyatt this long for two decades?

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. I ask myself that every morning when I wake up. No, it's been a it's been a wonderful journey. I I'd say, I mean, maybe some some background history. So my dad was in the Navy uh and we moved around every two years, right? So I always uh I thought that was normal, of course, growing up because we were with other Navy families, and um then you come to realize like, wait, not everyone's doing this for uh for their life when you get a little bit older. Right. But I think that uh instilled in me, for better or for worse, this desire to change every two years, right? So like I think every two or three years I have this itch for something new. And what's been wonderful about Hyatt is they've really nurtured that in my career. So I started in revenue management, uh, my first job back in the day when you know we were doing everything in Excel. Yeah. Uh before we even had really good systems.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

You were building your own formulas to try to determine what it should be. Oh man, my VLOOKUP skills were off the charts, Brian. Well, do you remember I well I remember forget price optimization started to come out, but the systems all they were was basically the Excel spreadsheets behind the system.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Behind the system, it was just the same formula, just as in an online format. In a fancier format, exactly. Yep. So that was where I started doing that. And I just had mentors and leaders and teammates that always push me to say, like, oh, if you're interested in something, like, why don't you follow that path? Why don't you see what it's about? So, you know, I got interested in like, oh, I'm I'd love to see how hotels open. And my boss, uh Pete Sears at the time was very encouraging and said, like, if you're interested in something, talk to people about it, join projects and learn about it. Like, this is how you're gonna grow in the hospitality industry. And that's always stuck with me is um Hyatt's allowed me to, I think, keep an entrepreneurial mindset. And if I'm interested in something or want to discover something, they've given me the space to do that and fostered that. So that takes, I think, a really good company culture, and that's what's really kept me around. So they have allowed me to change jobs every two years. Yeah. That's wild. Exactly. And so it's felt like I've gotten to work for so many different companies over the years, but always with that backbone and that culture that has been a standard. And kept you interested, obviously. Exactly, exactly. I've and I've been stimulated like since my first day. It's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Did you go from revenue man? What was the first thing you did after revenue management?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

I moved into operations analytics after that. So my boss, Pete Sears at the time, was the SVP of the Midwest region, which they called the black and blue region. Okay. So yeah, we had some, you know, great hotels out there, but they were a bit challenging in the Midwest, you know, compared to the East and the West Coast, which had a little more uh luxury spin to them. But I got to learn, you know, everything from food and beverage to meetings and events to banqueting to housekeeping and um really getting to spend time at hotels and do kind of a corporate management trainee program as well, where I did all the jobs at the hotel. So that was an amazing experience and having again great leaders that basically exposed me to everything from management contracts down to like scheduling for housekeeping. Right. So I had this very broad.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

How do you feel like that all that skill set has translated into your role today?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's it's always been a build. You know, you can lean on the things that you learned in the past. But I think the best part about my career is I always have people that I can rely on because you know, I've got a reasonably good memory, but I can't remember everything. But my I think my strongest skill is I know people that know something. So while I don't know it, I can I can call somebody and say, like, hey, remember me from 18 years ago when I was uh you know working at your hotel? Uh you know what was that what was that thing that we did with the housekeeping schedule that you know really worked? Yeah. So uh I think relying on on the people connections has been really powerful, and I've been blessed to have a great network over these these 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

No, and it's never burn a bridge. No, you never know when you're gonna need to call somebody. Building those bridges, never burning them. Now, interesting thing, I have read that you never travel without the Sunday New York Times crossword. That is true. It's in my room right now. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

I have like uh usually I travel with two or three. I'm like behind. Okay. Right? He's been a little busy. I've been busy, and uh then I also can have like a backup, so if I finish one, there's always one in the in the hopper. Okay. What started this? Great question. So um again, history. My so my dad was in the Navy, right? And he had he was in the sum a submarine guy. So he'd have like periods of time where he was gone. Okay. And my mom's dad, my grandpa, absolute legend, Charlie, he would come and stay with us for like months at a time, wherever we were stationed. And he, uh, World War II vet, Purple Heart, had like a piece of shrapnel in his knee, right? That I literally remember my brother and I we'd sit at breakfast and he would be having coffee, doing crosswords, and we'd be like playing, moving the shrapnel around in his knee. Right. And that's like one of my early childhood memories, honestly. So he was big into crosswords, my mom was big into crosswords. My brother uh is the best in the family, unfortunately. I'm pretty I'm pretty much the best at everything else. Okay. And he was very happy that I gave him a shout-out in that Wall Street Journal piece uh about him being better at crosswords, because I usually don't ever admit defeat, but he's the best.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

So it's not an act of dispute anymore?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

No, I wish it was, but he uh I think he's he has the New York Times app, right? The games app. Right. I don't know if you use that at all, but it's fun. I have it on my phone. I don't know. Okay, well, I'll get you into it later, but crosswords have never been my thing. Understood. There's other things. I know words. What about Wordle? You know, everyone loves Wordle. I should try Wordle.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yeah, it's pretty popular. Yeah. So as you said, like your career's taking this winding road. Yes. And I think if anything, it illustrates the point, especially in our business, don't say no. Like you can still start at any like that's one great thing about hospitality. You can start at any level.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yes. And usually work your way. For sure. We have so many stories, you know. You know our former CEO, Chuck Floyd, you know, starting as uh valet guy, you know, my boss Pete, starting at the front desk and is a bell boy in his career, and then they become executives at Hyatt. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

You know, I think it's great because it gives you a completely different perspective on everything. Absolutely. You're not and it puts everybody on the same level. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

You've all done the same work exactly at some point. I think it's an opportunity, honestly, for us with a newer generation, where people see it maybe more as a job than as a career. When I got into it, I was like, wow, this is like this could be a super cool career. If you like food and beverage, you can do this. You can be a waiter, you can be a chef, you know, you can be a front desk agent, you can clean rooms. Like there's so much variety. You can be a developer, you can sell people hotels. Right. Right? Like that. When I got into it, I had no idea, even like the realm of possibilities that were available in hospitality.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Which I think is why so many people accidentally fall in and then they stick around for 20 years. They stick around for 20 years. I feel like there's very few people that actually go to school for hospitality and end up doing it on the long term. I feel like the majority of us ended up because we just happened to start working in a hotel and realize our skills were portable to all these other people.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um just like the I think it's also the people aspect of it, right? The camaraderie that you get at a hotel. Right. You know, like the shared struggle and being in front of guests and having to solve problems and you know, then having fun with your colleagues after work and hanging out.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

It's like being on a sports team. Yeah. Or like my background was performing arts. It's like putting on a show every day. Yeah, like a cast. Yeah, then you go have a party afterwards. Exactly, and celebrate. So there's enough drama happening in a hotel that the stories are endless. Which I always loved that the one thing I miss about being on property is everyone would always say, Oh, this isn't supposed to be something that's shared or whatever. And there's really no secrets in a hotel. Which I've always like, people be like, How did they know? If one person at the hotel finds out, everyone will know. Exactly. But I use that to my advantage over the years. I would know exactly who to drop the information to if I needed it to spread. That's right. Okay. Because you could tell the one person and then they would be like this, but this one's gonna gossip. Yeah, this one will gossip and tell everybody. So love it. Um awesome. So let's talk about uh Hyatt Studios. Yes. So this was launched as Hyatt's extended stay concept, yes, which was supposed which well is still playing in the mid-scale space. But what did it take for you to get that brand built from the ground up? And it had been the first brand really to be built from the ground up since Hyatt Place, correct?

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah, and we didn't I mean uh technically we bought American.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

I mean, to say Hyatt Place technically was not a from the ground up.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, but uh you know, we put our own touch on it and had our own design team, but that was 2006, right? That we were doing that. So, you know, it was 18 years later before we kind of self-built a brand. We done a lot of uh acquisitions over that time. But um, what was really special about it was first of all, we had a great um outside perspective in Dan Hansen, who was a former owner and CEO at Summit. And he always loved his time with Hyatt and loved the people, and um, I think got involved in this opportunity to launch a new brand. And his mindset was brands should not be launched by um design, right? They should at least start with the foundation of how they're built. So we literally went out to owners and we asked them, all right, what are the things that are slowing you down on your development sites, or what are the things that are most important? We got into like such detail that we were looking at lengths of wood and said instead of like making it nine feet six, let's make it ten feet because wood comes in that length and you don't have to cut it on site, just saving that amount of time, right? So we built our design around like what it actually meant to build a hotel and talk to subcontractors and um design it that way, and then we put the Hyatt touch on it. Then we came in and say, Okay, like let's make it our aesthetic, but we gotta do that without adding a whole bunch of cost and things that aren't really gonna improve the guest experience. Yeah. We also went so far as to build out a model room facility outside of O'Hare, which I still have not. You gotta come to Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Like we're gonna have to come to Chicago. Absolutely. It's a fun place, it's like taking Playhouse to the next level. Well, actually, the weather's much better in Chicago these days, so I'll have to maybe make it a summer trip. When we both get back from vacation, summertime shy. Yeah. Where to where do you gotta be? I mean, it's one thing I do miss about Chicago living in Chicago is the summers. It's the best.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yeah. Yeah, come out. You miss the street festivals. You know, we got everything going on right now. All the neighborhood, like exactly. I miss all of that stuff. Well, we'll have you back. We'll show you the model rooms. You can take a tour. Yeah. And uh are all the brands in this facility? All the essentials brands, except unscripted, because that's more of like an independent, and you're kind of doing it. Well, that would be a little awkward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

It's called unscripted, and then if you have a model. A prototype for that, uh, we don't.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

It kind of goes against the exactly. It's a little too scripted for sure. But with Studios, we built it out. We built this model room, and we also had people come stand behind the front desk and use the kiosk, and then we made changes based on like heights and um cubbies and where they want to store things. We also had housekeepers come in and clean the rooms, and we made adjustments to the rooms based on that. Like we changed some fixtures in the shower that they had trouble cleaning properly and made them simpler to clean. We changed some of the fabrics because they required a second cleaner, so now they don't have to carry a second cleaner, they can just use you know one specific cleaner. Um with all of that, yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Like I'm hearing you say it, and in my head, I'm like, that just is like, why would you not do that in the first place? But the a lot of the brands have not done that over the years because everything's designed, it looks great on paper, and then you start with this beautiful design, and like, all right, well, let's build it like we do every other hotel, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Instead of thinking from like ground up, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Even like with the lengths of wood where it's like every cut now, it costs something. That's right. Every cut costs time, costs money. The developers that have signed that have either have opened or have hotels in the pipeline now, like what has their reaction been when they've actually looked looked at the build costs?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Yeah, they I think they're at first surprise, like, ah, can we really do it for this much? I don't know, we'll see. And you know, the quotes always tend to come in high because people are saying, like, well, you know, everyone says they're gonna have a good build cost, but like, let's see it in reality. I think the most telling is that uh the 3H group or NSI, who's built the first one in Mobile, have already finished two more in the time that they opened the first one. And they have more in the pipeline. So their construction team, Grace Construction, amazing group, they are just flying through this now. And like, and not only that, were we perfect the first time around? Absolutely not. We missed many things. We did a retrospective with Grace, and we sat down, we spent an entire day with them in Chattanooga at their headquarters, and went over all of the design plans and all of the communication issues and all of the things. And they went from 14 months in their first one to 13 months in their next one to under 12 months in their third one. That's incredible. So we're saving meaningful time, getting hotels open earlier, getting revenue in the books earlier, and that is meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Which in today's lending climate also helps secure the financing faster if the lender knows that this is gonna get off the ground and can be actually opened within a reasonable amount of time. Exactly. They're not gonna get left with a piece of dirt in a half built building.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

For sure. So for sure. So now I'm encouraged and we're hoping. That we get more construction underway. I think the environment still is difficult. You know, if we're honest, the interest rates still remain high and construction estimates are still coming in higher than we want. But now having some proven results at proven price points, that is gonna help us grow.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Now, what kind of changes did you make to the room after the first build? Because I'm assuming you did all those exercises at in Chicago at on the prototype. That's right. But once it was actually open, did you take anything from the actual team on site that was operating and make additional changes? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Most of it actually was public space and back of house. Really? So the rooms we didn't change as much. I think we had we had customers come through the rooms. We did we spent a lot of time on the rooms because we had that facility built down where the rooms probably changed the least. Okay. We did make some minor adjustments to adding extra drawers and changing the closet up a bit just to make sure that different guests, for example, female guests said like we could use more drawers. Like the open closet is great, but we'd like some privacy with drawers. So we added a few more drawers. But back of house, for example, we put uh this is very simple thing, but the stacks of laundry and linen that are in the back of house storage on the different floors. We added wheels to the cart, so you can actually now wheel the linen cart into the elevator instead of having to put it all in a laundry bin, bring it up and stack it on the shelves. Now the shelves are movable. So you can bring the shelves down to bottom level where the laundry is, fold them and put them right on the shelves, roll it in, roll it up, and you're only folding and unloading once. So it's a few minutes saved. And it's a simple fix. A simple fix, but you know, one of our operators said, hey, it'd be great if these shelves weren't, you know, fixed if we can move them so we could stack them down right when we're doing the laundry instead of transferring them. Right. Save five or ten minutes, but you add that up every day. Again, over the course of a year. Meaningful. Like minutes matter and these brands.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

And rates pay rates are not cheap.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

No. As they once as they once were. Yeah, keep going up. So we're all about efficiency, we're all about learning. And I think part of the greatness of our team has been this openness to feedback and like always listening first. Uh and that served us really well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

So with what you did with Hyatt Studios, how now you went to Hyatt Select. You launched that last year too. Yes. Which is a conversion brand. Conversion brand. Conversion friendly. Which did make me nervous for you. Yes. I was very nervous because I I feel like I say this with love evenly across the business. Most major brands don't do a very good job at conversions. Yes. A lot of it's because they pick they allow people to will get that's a whole other episode. But what have you what did you take from the studio's experience into the select side? Yeah. Knowing that you weren't building a building from the ground up.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

For sure. A completely different challenge, right? And I think we started um in-house, and that was the nicest part about it, is we have Hyatt Place hotels that quite honestly um we let uh pass their renovation cycle due to COVID, right? So we talked about America. No, and I it was the right thing to do at the time for owners, but now it's time to renovate, right? And I I think we've been serious about that for the last couple years. The reality, however, is some of the markets that our original Hyatt places was in that we call them the generation one, those Amerisuites that we converted, right? A lot of them were in suburban business parks. And the central business district in that area has moved over the last 20 years. So true. Right? And and that's just a lot of post-COVID change, right? Not as many people are going into work or the areas have moved. So now you have these hotels that maybe aren't earning an upscale rate anymore in ADR and putting five million dollars into a renovation to stay a Hyatt place isn't financially viable for these owners. And I would say we were thoughtful enough, because by the way, we owned all these hotels to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Because it's really actually very recent that Hyatt became asset light for sure. Yeah, over these last, you know, I think 10 years, we've sold multiple billions of dollars worth of assets. I think the last time I checked, I think 2% of the balance sheet at Hyatt is real estate. Yeah. At this point, it used to be 30. Yeah, right. Which is insane. Yeah. Um, but you also like Hyatt was slow to adopt that strategy, which everybody else had gotten on board with 10 years prior. But um yeah, so you own those assets. We did for a long time. So we know them intimately. And you knew what it was, so you knew what everyone was feeling if that's right on your owner's side.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

That's right. And we had done renovation cycles with them as well. Um, and we part of being an owner, I think, is also understanding that perspective and saying, like, if we're not gonna do it with our balance sheet, we can't make our other owners do it with theirs. Right. Right. So acknowledging that. Um, we started with looking at our high-att places and saying, okay, if we were to have a best case scenario, what would we do with these products that no longer have an upscale hotel but still have value in the market? And by the way, our guests are telling us you don't have enough locations and you need more locations across the map. Um I gotta go to that soccer tournament. Gotta go to that, yeah, exactly. Or you know, you have a travel occasion for work and it's in, I mean, there's so we don't we literally didn't have a don't have a single hotel open in West Virginia.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

It's like a that's a it's a state. It is an entire state. Yeah. This idea of looking at our own product and saying we can position this now as an upper mid-scale hotel, we can reduce the renovation cost from five million down to like two and a half or three. We'll still see an ADR lift because you're renovating. And we can reduce uh some of the public space, uh, simplify the breakfast, simplify the food and beverage experience, uh, improve the lot of more of those hyped places if if the numbers aren't penciling out, that's where a lot of the bleed is at. Yeah, there's a suspens substantial public space in those buildings, right? And the rooms are huge, by the way, as well. Like the biggest rooms in the market, which I still want to advertise as a very positive thing. It's a very positive thing, yes, but more expensive to renovate, right? Right. So we're very thoughtful about the things in the room that we would change to make it look updated and new, uh, but not go into this process of changing every single thing. So we again surveyed guests, found out what's most important to them, and it's like a nice bathroom experience, a nice bed experience. Um, everything's clean, everything's working, right? And we focused on those issues and got to a very good renovation cost, and we said, now we have a great plan for these Hyatt places, which um, by the way, a lot are now converting to Hyatt Select. So we offered it to a lot of those maybe Amerisuit's gen ones. Yes, exactly. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

So we have Which have historically, I know you won't comment on this probably, but have historically been the worst of the Hyatt Place portfolio.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

And that's just because they age, like they because they age and we hadn't had the renovation cycle. Now we do. So this next phase of these next two years, we'll be renovating a lot of Hyatt places into Hyatt Selects, and they have a place to stay within the Hyatt family. They're more efficient, they're gonna be more profitable. And then we thought, like, hey, we're doing this for our own product, like, why wouldn't we offer this up to other products that are out there to join the Hyatt family? And that was a big unlock for us to say, okay, now we can apply the same thing we've done with our own hotels from Hyatt Place to Hyatt Select. We can do with other assets that want to convert and join the Hyatt family. And we've been really thoughtful, I think, most about the public space in the first impression, right? There's not a lot you can do about exteriors of buildings, can't really change those to look identical. No, and don't paint them.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Yeah, yeah. People have tried, right? It never works out well. Ironically, they don't realize the paint will chip.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Right? And then the exposed brick starts to show through. For sure, for sure. So we've been you have an amazing design team led by Katie Pop, and we've done this ourselves with our own money and our own dollars and our own brands, and we feel very confident that we can let other brands in. We're also being selective, right? No, no pun on the word, but it is high at select, and only the select can join. But uh this opens up so much opportunity right now because of the cost of money and because of um the timelines on new builds. It's by far and away the most popular um asset class, I would say at the moment. And I heard that you know from a lot of the CEOs on the panel yesterday that conversions is making up an increasingly large percentage of new deals for hotels over these last few years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

But with Hyatt Select, we were saying like no pun intended, you're being selective. I would imagine there is a big opportunity to take like four points by Sheridan, old, potentially Hampton, yes, and gen ones that they're what I would call they need to be put out of their misery. Because they can't pencil out at those for those brands. Yeah. And maybe, but if you can put two and a half million in it, it could still well. Actually, I would say on the four points by Sheridan side, you've probably got a really good portfolio there that you could go after. Yeah. Um, especially on the ones that were new builds 10 years ago that are up for license renewal. Right. Um be interesting to see the next couple of years, because that'll be the height, I think, of those new builds opening on the four-point side. Right. So it'll be interesting to see how many owners take a look at the pivot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Yeah. You know, it's a every hotel has its own story, right? And some were built better than others, and they're built at different times. So there's not like a hard and fast, it's gonna be this amount of dollars. And we're very thoughtful. We do a profit improvement walk with every hotel, and we're very upfront with owners about what it's gonna cost to become a Hyatt. And it's special, again, to be a Hyatt. So we also explain you spend this money, this is the expectation of return, and this is what you're gonna get. So we found it to be a really compelling business case for owners. And I think a lot of them, to be honest, are thinking of going this way with their brands for two reasons. One is if they're if they're coming from an upper mid scale to upper mid-scale, so so not really changing scales. It's it's generally due to an oversaturation of the other brands in their market, right? Where you can be one of two or one of three Hyattes in your entire market versus one of 14 in another brand, right? So that's a compelling argument. You're gonna get a bigger base of our loyalty versus splitting it amongst 14 other properties.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

And do you feel like Hyatt will maintain the strategy of not saturating the markets with well, obviously we know that they're like West Virginia doesn't have one, so like you'd have a really tough time saturating West Virginia. But you know, you and I have talked in the past about uh my feelings about you know the just the conversion rate on the loyalty programs. Yes, you know, uh the World of Hyatt program has a higher spend and length of stay versus all of the other uh programs. Yes. The number of members is fewer. Yes, but the uh they stay more. That's right. Because you know, the other brands can stay 70, 80, 90, 100 million, but it's not really a it's not a true number all the time because you have deceased people in there. They've been didn't done such a uh big job of like promoting that program that they've got all these people, but they might only stay once a year. That's right. Whereas the world of Hyatt members staying more regularly more regularly and they're spending more too. That's right. Which because the reality is, and I remember I think our first call I ever had with you, I think I like was giving you a hard time about the fact is like I know you think the rate's gonna be this, but the reality is if it says Hyatt, no matter what, the consumer thinks it's a premium. That's right. Like from a consumer standpoint, it's a premium. So from that perspective, too, like going into a new market, how do you communicate that to the market? Or has that just been a benefit for the owners? Where like it's an it's Hyatt's here, they see that Hyatt sign, they don't really see anything at past that. They just know Hyatt's known for being luxury lifestyle branded hotels.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Yeah. I think we uh I have the Halo benefit of Hyatt always being at the top end of every segment that it operates and people already having that mindset. Right. I have the obligation with Hyatt Select and Hyatt Studios and Unscripted to keep that maintained. Right. So whoever's coming into Hyatt Select, yes, while we're in upper mid-scale and it's not upper upscale, we still want to be the best in that category. In that category. We want an ADR premium, we want the experience to be the best. We want people to say, yeah, I'll pay a little bit extra to stay here versus the competitive set. Right. Because I know I'm getting that Hyatt quality, right? Even at this price point.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. And it's a very competitive segment. It is. Like that is what is interesting to me that Hyatt decided to make this jump. Yes. Is it is the most competitive segment in our business right now. Absolutely. And Hyatt has always bet on luxury. Yes. And does it very well. And then made this shift to say, let's go after. But it made sense because again, those consumers need it. Exactly. And they've they've asked for it. Yeah. And I think on the consumer side, it's great. Like if you're traveling for work, if you're staying at a Hyatt Select all the time, you get the world of Hyatt points. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

You can go spend them in Hawaii or some of the most all-inclusive of any other hotel chains. You can have these great vacations now. And I think that's what's going to be really compelling about uh Select and Studios is folks realize that we're probably in a place that Marriott and Hilton were 15 years ago where they were launching home two and town place and getting into all these markets. Now they've benefited from this much larger loyalty base because they have these hotels. Right. So in addition to our guests saying, yes, we desire to stay in more locations, and the only reason we stay at other hotels is there's not a Hyatt in the market. We also have this opportunity to engage with the new generations that are starting their careers and become loyalty for life with Hyatt. And I think that's the most exciting part for me about Select and Studios is we're gonna have so many people that get their first Hyatt experience at these hotels and then grow up with them and then you know take their families, their future families on these amazing vacations, because we're always gonna continue to lead the way in luxury and lifestyle and lean in on our full service portfolio.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Yeah, I don't because I would I would imagine I don't see that from an outsider, I don't foresee that ever being something that Hyatt departs from. Right. And it's doubled down on, especially like last year with the acquisition of or in 24, it was the acquisition of Playa. Yep, Playa, yeah. And then standard last year as well. Baha'i principal. Um which you know, I had somebody say to me the other day, I'm like, yeah, they were like, Well, did you see like Hyatt had such a big loss in 2025? And I knew you were coming on. So I like I had gone back to look at it again, and I was like, there actually wasn't a loss in 2025. It was an asset exchange. It was because of an yeah, because you the prior year you divested more real estate. Yes. And then last year you integrated Playa and Sandra into the system. So there was like 147 million, I think, that got maybe that was the real estate, but it if you take all that out, it was actually an increase year over year.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

So from the uh shareholder analyst side, we've always been complicated over these years, but we have been following our plan and we have been uh, I think, very transparent about what that plan is over these years. I think this next wave of Hyatt, now that we've um done some major acquisitions and we've sold a lot of real estate, we're gonna be more predictable, and predictability is important to analysts in Wall Street. 100%. And now I think they're gonna finally see like we have been at a better clip than all of our competitors. We've just been doing it in a different way. Right. But that is gonna start to become more obvious, and I think we have a strong potential for growth. And everything's relative, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Like, you know, I did go like if you compare like the Marriott Starwood merger in that whole process, yes, the only reason they didn't experience the same type of you know, earnings for results was because the size of the system, because they brought Sheridan and some of those big brands in that the fees were the fee revenue was so high, yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean it was quality or uh fees either that um as the brand leader though, going into a new market, so say that Hurricane West Virginia decides to open up its first Hyatt in West Virginia, as the brand leader, how do you and I feel like I know how you're going to answer this question. Do you want to answer it for me then and I'll take a break? Yeah, I know, because I want to see what I want to see if I'm right. Is how protective of the brand are you going to be in a market that Hyatt has not existed before? So how hard will you be on that first entrant into the market versus maybe the fifth or sixth?

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Yeah, uh, I think we will apply our discipline equally. We have programs in place for all of our hotels on quality assurance. I know you also have a QA company, so maybe we'll invite uh Brian Fish out personally to do a tour and ensure we're up to your standard, because I know you got high standards, Brian. I do. So uh the internet better work.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Which I have to say, Hyatt, again, underdog here, I think, in terms of like people don't realize Hyatt is the only one of the major franchise systems that has a guest room entertainment system that fucking works. I love that. Like, I just don't get it. Like, I've still like I I was at a hotel the other day, and I'm like, it's still like they have the newest thing they're supposed to have from their specific brand, but it can't and it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

I know. So frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Whereas Hyatt, it's like every time I've been in a Hyatt hotel, no matter what brand it is, once the app's connected, once I've connected to the Wi-Fi, it knows where I'm staying, I can't put a room up right there on the app. Everything works. Yes. And it's not this like big like I gotta scan all these QR codes, you know, stand on two feet, do all this other shit just to get you know Netflix to work. I'm happy to hear that. So like and that does is the guest room entertainment system the same at all the brands, no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Absolutely. Okay. And that's something we'll always lean into. I think having more good Wi-Fi speed and good, you know, you want to feel like everything you can do at home, you can do in the hotel room.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

100%, especially in the essentials market. Exactly. So it's a little different at luxury. You might be staying there and you want you're expecting a better experience in the market. That should be better. But essentials, yeah, we want to match what you're used to and comfortable with. Yeah, it's like I'll tell people when I remember when TVs were a big deal. Oh, yeah. I feel like you and I came up at the same time. So, like, you remember when the flat screen TVs first came out, like they were like this big.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

It's very a lot wider, thicker.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

And that little TV would be like $1,500. Oh, yeah. And then owners were like losing their minds because they had to get bigger TVs because the brands were requiring them. For sure. And they were like going nuts because it's like, well, they're so expensive. It's like, well, the guests can go to Costco and get a 55-inch TV. They don't understand why you can't have one in my hotel room for sure. But uh, well, that's good to hear. Because the entertainment system is very important to me. Happy to hear. But uh now, give we talked about studio select.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

You also have unbound, unscripted, unbound is our luxury uh independent collection. Okay. And then unscripted is our upscale independent collection. Perfect. Yes. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

And caps, so caption and unscripted are the and those continue to have those are rolled out and I've had good pipelines.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Yeah, unscripted's new. Um caption, we started in 2019 and launched right before the pandemic. So we had a a bit of like a stop start there. Yeah. Start stop rather, and then start again. So we are seeing continued momentum there, which is fantastic, especially in in Asia Pacific. Brand's been very well received there. Uh and then with Unscripted, we have 10 hotels open, and we just launched the first one in December 2025. Wow. So 10 open already in six months. And I think that's extremely popular because of our reputation. Right. Right? People know us for unique experiences and for like high quality, unique assets. And so people that have these independent hotels but are lacking the distribution have like tended to gravitate towards Hyatt. Yeah. So that's been really special to see is that people like that, you know, they when you have an independent hotel, like your heart and soul is usually in it as an owner. And then to trust it to be handed over to a brand and say, like, we're not gonna change it's worrisome for them. It's gonna be worrisome, yeah. But I think we've seen that because of our portfolio and the way that we are approachable and flexible, we've we've had a great response from the ownership community on scripted. That's fantastic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

I want to get to Nashville and check out. I want to get to Tennessee and check out. Yeah, too.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Caption in Chattanooga and Nashville, amazing experiences.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Tennessee's the place to be. It is.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

If you're hiatt, it is. And apparently a great tax situation there, so it's like a you know, great place to retire and outdoor life.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

I say everybody moves from like LA to hospital. So you and I could talk all day. You actually do have to get back to work. Yes, I know. Yeah, I've got a job to attend to it. But uh, after spending two decades building brands with Hyatt, this last this last part of your career there, if you had to distill everything you learned about hospitality leadership into one idea, something you wish more people in the industry would understand, what would it be? Wow.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

It's a hard hitting final question there, Brian. Uh, to distill it down to one thought. Um, you know, I I think what drew me to hospitality. Was probably, you know, in the personal life, just loving to have friends and family over to my house. I don't know if you're do you like to house people at your house. Sometimes sometimes. Okay. I just like it can be too much sometimes. For sure. Yeah. There's a certain time period you want people there. Right. Let's say a nice dinner party. My husband's key at telling people, okay, it's time for you to go. I love that. It's good to have a partner like that. But ha let's say a nice dinner party, right? You're having people over. They come to your door. Are you are you on your iPad on your you know couch just waiting for them to come in and sit down by themselves and walk up to you and greet you? Right. You're you're going to the door, you're taking their jacket, you're taking their bags if they have them, you're greeting them. Are you are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Right? I think this it's innate in humans to want to be around other people and to you know eat together and to laugh together and to experience sadness together and all the human emotions. Um what I love about the hotel world is you get to do that on such a broad scale, right? So you get to meet people from all over the world in this job. I've had the pleasure of traveling the world and getting to experience different cultures, which has just changed me as a person. And I think travel is so powerful in people's lives, and if more people had that opportunity, how much better off the world would be. So I know that's like a you know pie in the three optimism, but what I you know, I just I love the industry because when people travel, they change for the better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Well, I think when you get to leave and you get to travel, it makes you appreciate where you came from.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Absolutely true. Yeah, it gives you a new perspective on your life and your upbringing.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Yeah, like I love spending time like in the UK. Like I I always say I would move there if I could. Yeah. But the reality is there's something about getting on the plane and landing back in the US. Like when you see the flag and everything, and it's like you realize you're home, that you just it it feels different. I completely agree. You appreciate things in a completely different way. Well, Jason, this was fantastic. Thank you for having me on. And I will get to Chicago. We will definitely look the model room out.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

And uh come have a meal with the Ballard family. We'll welcome you like a like a globalist, like fantastic guest. Yeah, we'll get the Netflix connected immediately, and everything will be good.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jason, and we'll be uh right back. So we talked a little bit about the independent operators that they love their heart, isn't it? Yes. So a lot of those assets they've they've really put blood, sweat, and tears and uh and money into them. So what's the profile for that that developer or owner to bring in?

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Yeah, those have have been um I I guess two profiles. One is you're an independent hotel in your in your hometown and you've created a name and an experience, but you're having trouble marketing and you're having trouble getting more looks. And I think honestly, with with AI and OTAs and the prevalence of awareness and advertising, being a big brand is a huge advantage, right? We're just way more visible with guests that are spending more and saying more. That's right. And so they're not getting the looks, and they're saying, well, you know, yes, I might have to pay 10 or 15% of my top line to a brand in order to join, but the benefit is gonna be significant. We're gonna save you on your OTA commissions, on your GDS commissions, we're gonna drive rates, we're gonna drive awareness. We'll still have a lot of direct bookings, which they don't have at all, generally speaking. So it's a really good value proposition for them to say, I can join this major brand. And I'm also joining a brand that knows independent hotels and knows what it means to have created something and how special that is. Right. Instead of just being, you know, one of 10,000, you're one of a few.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

And I would think given Hyatt's history with doing luxury, those owners are probably more there's a comfortability. Yeah, more comfortable saying, Let me bring my baby to that's right, to this.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Exactly. Exactly. So we've we've seen um an excellent uh inception first uh in this first wave. And in addition to those independent hotels, we're also doing like nested collections. Okay, we have those groups that are a little bit bigger. Um, one of our first entrants into unscripted was the Wink Hotels group in Vietnam, and they have six hotels. Oh, wow. They have like a great um character, they're like kind of fun, they've got the coolest laundry rooms I've ever seen. Really? Like disco laundry rooms. Oh, that's amazing, right? And they they are amazing, but the same kind of same situation. They're like our highest reputation is amazing in the Asia Pacific, as you're aware. Right. We have great assets there, and they were saying, well, we want to keep our identity and we want these hotels to continue to grow, and we want the Wink Hotel to grow. We can put it as an S in brand and unscripted, get the distribution we need, but also keep our identity. That's awesome. And we're seeing more of that kind of come in the US as well, where any smaller boutique chains uh that want to have the distribution power of a major brand.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

I like it. Yeah, and I would imagine penciling it out, the discount on the OTAs for some of those independent hotels. That alone probably is a good trade. Can cover a lot of the fees of royalty. Yeah, exactly. And do they still get access to the sales and marketing engine?

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Yeah, so they'll still be on our Hyatt Salesforce, they'll still get our regional sales, they'll get our field marketing, um, and they can choose to sign up for our full suite of revenue management support as well.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Awesome. So that was one thing I did want to make sure I asked you was just talking to people in the business. People I know that work at Hyatt locations or manage them. Their one takeaway with Hyatt is always that they love the fact that there's no big hard line between the managed portfolio and the franchise. Yeah, so all the resources are available. The sales global sales team shares the wealth. Yes. And nothing's really restricted to a point where you see at Marriott Hilton, IHG where there's really a big wall between the managed and franchise side.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Yeah, it's a great point. You know, as a guest, if we're being human-centered in our design, they don't even know franchise managed what that means, right? Or that it exists. Nor do they care. Nor do they care, nor should they, because they see the name on the building, it's a Hyatt. Right. And they have an expectation of quality and service that we need to uphold. And so we have always been very thoughtful about no matter who is operating our hotels, they need to have that same feeling. Yeah. So that means extra time dedicated to training, extra time dedicated to uh franchise resources. And if I'm on transparent, our our franchise um owner scores were kind of on a decline for uh the years of 2018 to like 2021. Every year our owners were saying the experience with Hyatt is getting worse. So imagine like having your boss every year sit you down and be like, You were worse this year than last year, Brian. And then the second year they say the same thing, and the third year they say the same thing. And that was the precipice of creating the franchise and owner relations group in 2021, which I was very um glad to be an opening member of, where we listened to our franchise ours and asked them, like, what is it, our franchisees rather, what is it that makes you most excited about working with Hyatt? Right. And they said, Well, like, I want a single point of contact, I want one person I can talk to. So we did that, which is huge because some of these organizations you the list is so long, right? And like, what do you need out of Hyatt in order to feel like you're gonna be successful in uh your commercial experience? Right. We would love revenue management support from experts, we would love to be connected to your sales team. So we did all those things.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Just simple things like sending a teams message to an internal Hyatt person.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

Seems to be like, yeah, that was one of the examples I was giving. Yeah, we're allowing them on Teams. We allow them on our email. All of our systems are available to them. So there's this experience like I am part of the family uh as a franchisee. And lo and behold, our scores have gone up every year for the last four years since uh we started down this path, right? Some good listening and some good response. And I think the feedback loop is also helpful. What we always hear on the Hyatt side from our ownership groups and from our operators is we are the most accessible and we're the most flexible. 100%. And I think that's really special with people when it's their asset and it's like their blood, sweat and their minds in it, and they say, I can't even get on the phone with somebody at some other company or you have to open a ticket. I have to open a ticket to get back to me. But in this company, I can call someone and I know they're gonna help me find an answer. Right. That's so meaningful. That's what that's hospitality. It's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

Because the reality is that's what we're doing. And if you can't deliver at that level, what expectation are you setting up the?

SPEAKER_00 52:48

If we can't do it for them, why should they be able to do it for the guests? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

So yeah, Jason, thank you. Thank you, Brian. Fantastic. Great. We got you back to the merit. Thank you. Yeah, you know, people love it, but you should go to the Hyatt Centric or check out is there a studio select anything in the New York area?

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Not downtown, because we'll be more in the suburban areas, but we have some coming. Okay. And we're uh excited to be in New York this week. And thank you for your time, Brian. Thank you. And to be on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

No, we're glad to have you. And uh be sure to uh check out all of Hyatt's options at uh Hyatt.com and uh join the World of Hyatt loyalty program. Yes, yes, and download the app. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Well, thank you. Thank you, Brian. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Check in with Brian is a production of RH Media Productions, executive produced by Tyler Alexander. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Reliance Hospitality Global, Limited Co., its affiliates, or subsidiaries. All content is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as professional legal, financial, or investment advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making decisions regarding your business.