bmw303

does anyone know of any plans for a Hyatt in Sweden?

GUWonder

I've heard of nothing of the sort.

thc

Here's some discussion on some reasons as to why: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hyatt...andinavia.html

uggboy

Difficult market to operate, high taxes, heavy labor laws and expensive to develop. But could there be demand?

thc

I've always thought that Scandinavia, in general, could do some better marketing to raise its tourism profile within the U.S. It seems it could be a more popular destination.

roland_wa

I don't think they care or do even want American tourists in their countries. Scandinavians have a lot more money than Americans and everything is more expensive than in the US, so why should they bother?

You can see some cities and countries where the tourism kills the environment (Galapagos and Easter Islands, some places in Egypt etc.) - so I think its more than understandable to not marketing tourism in some cases.

Well but I think a Hyatt Hotel in Oslo, Copenhagen or Stockholm wouldn't be so bad. I would be very happy and I don't think the rates would be higher than in for example Istanbul. An Andaz/Park in Oslo or Stockholm, a Regency or Place in Copenhagen (or even Helsinki) maybe. I don't think there is a market for Grand Hyatt in Scandinavia.

I was really sad to see Hyatt dissapear from Spain, they won't return obviously. Hope they will open more properties in Europe though. Only 22 at the moment...sad.

GUWonder

Probably.

Compared to US-UK, US-Spain, US-Germany, US-Italy, the US tourism to Scandinavia seems more skewed toward the "old folks" variety than younger crowds, yet most of the other tourism flows within and to the Scandinavian region are more inclusive of younger demographics. This shows up even in the new hotel developments in the region -- including particularly the more expensive end of hotels in the region. [I haven't checked out Scandinavia-US tourism demographics recently, but if my flights are anything to go by over recent decades, the flow of Scandinavian persons to the US seems to have moved toward getting older too.]

Grand Hyatt in the region? Just cannot see it happening anytime soon. A Hyatt Place or an Andaz? Perhaps. But I've heard nothing about government permissions being sought toward that purpose.

hailstorm

Bump.

christianj

Hyatt is not the only big chain to not have much of a presence there. I think if your looking for chain hotels in the scandics then Club Carlson is really the way to go.

GUWonder

Not too overdue to update this thread, as it seems to get bumped up every 5 years.

As of spring of this year Hyatt will have added 3 World of Hyatt participating properties in Sweden under Hyatt's Joie de Vivre collection: a Story hotel in Malmo plus two Story hotels in Stockholm.

Hyatt already has an Unbound Collection property in Stockholm with Hotell Riesen. There is also Bank Hotel as part of Small Luxury Hotels in Stockholm.

I now have more hotel redemption options with the Hyatt program in Sweden than I have with Hilton. 15 years ago, Hilton had dozens of Swedish hotels where I could use my Hilton points, and now Hilton is down to just 1 hotel in Sweden (since Hilton has been wrapping up its presence in EU Scandinavia since cutting ties with Scandic). IHG has no properties in Sweden.

Best Western hotels and Choice hotels have a lot of hotels in Sweden where I can use the respective hotel programs' points. Carlson hotels has many properties in Sweden too, with the Radisson and Park Inn hotels available for redemption with their hotel program points. But BW and Choice properties are far more prevalent than Carlson properties.

Fims

Hyatt's Joie de Vivre and Unbound Collection are also useful for those Europeans looking to get Brand Explorer awards

GUWonder

One of the two Story hotels in Stockholm — namely, the Story Signalfabriken hotel — is available for as little as a net 2750 Hyatt points per night for WOH credit card users who signed up for all of the major Hyatt promos earlier this quarter and happen to complete stays by mid-June.

5000 points per night is the redemption price; but with 2500 points back for every two nights and 1000 points back for every night as a new hotel promo, that’s 2250 points back for each night if sticking to booking even number of nights. This is about as good as it gets for hotel prices in Stockholm even if buying Hyatt points. This cheaper Story hotel in Stockholm is about ten minutes by the T-bana trains from Stockholm Central, so not the best located property for a typical tourist, but still very convenient with public transit options and it includes breakfast for all guests. But it is only a 25-35 minute walk away from Bromma airport if coming into Stockholm that way.

boolean64

I stayed at the bank hotel a couple years ago. Good central location. Nice enough hard product. Good breakfast. Small rooms, but that might just be par for the course in stockholm. At the time, they had just opened a rooftop bar that was a lot of fun and supposed to be quite popular amongst the locals.

MasterPlanner

I've actually got the Nordic suite (with sauna!) booked at the Hotell Reisen in October. Really hope that Americans will be able to travel there by then...

GUWonder

Stockholm hotel rooms at the major brands aren't all that small -- especially not when going beyond the Hyatt-affiliated ones in Stockholm.

I've hit up all the Hyatt-affiliated hotels in Sweden -- I've been at most of them in recent weeks too, as I wanted to check out the Story hotels that are now in WOH -- and I must say that the Hyatt-affiliated hotels tend to turn out to have smaller rooms assigned for my bookings than the Nordic Choice hotels, Carlson/Radisson hotels, Scandic hotels and BW hotels in Sweden. Nordic Choice hotels and the Marriott hotels in Sweden tend to give me the best elite status upgrades of the lot. Stockholm hotel rooms in the major brand hotels are all over the place in terms of size, so not sure I'd say that small rooms are par for the course in Stockholm since there is a lot of range for the city hotel rooms at all of the price points -- but I'm seeing this from the perspective of having mid to top-tier status in the relevant hotel programs.

The Story hotels include breakfast for all guests.