Hyatt House used to be Summerfield Suites. Hyatt Place used to be AmeriSuites. Both were bought in the mid-2000s. It inevitably took a few years to digest those acquisitions, get brand standards up, etc.

Enter any Hyatt Place and you'll see that they're basically the same. Not easy to reflag any old hotel to... Building from scratch takes awhile.

It's also my impression that Hyatt has higher standards than some other chains, so end up losing properties that aren't willing to invest. Warsaw comes to mind.

Of course, any Hyatt fan outside of the US couldn't care less whether there's a HP in Des Moines. We'd rather see more breadth worldwide - not just the PHs in Zurich, Vienna, Sydney, but also more reasonably priced HRs, GHs, some more airport HPs etc.