Hyatt Place Brand to Undergo Refresh
 

Interesting reading. I just found this article on TPG: https://thepointsguy.com/news/hyatt-...t-place-brand/


Hyatt has a different vision for the future of its Hyatt Place brand. On Monday, Hyatt announced that going forward, the Hyatt Place brand will shift to offer a more modern set of amenities and design, as well as free breakfast for all World of Hyatt members.

According to a press release, the new Hyatt Place brand will “focus on three key areas: thoughtful design, driving value for World of Hyatt members and enhanced well-being experiences.” You can see each of the three new focus areas detailed below:

Design

With the reimagined Hyatt Place brand, travelers can expect to find new furniture in rooms, as well as new features like a premium mattress, blackout shades and warm-colored lighting. In addition, travelers can expect to find redesigned bathrooms in guest rooms, featuring a larger vanity for storage, better lighting to reduce shadows, a walk-in shower with footrest and more.

Much like business traveler brands with other hotel programs, Hyatt is attempting to promote a more communal feel for guests, beginning in the lobby. The company says the lobby experience will “become an energizing intersection for guests looking to get out of their rooms.”

World of Hyatt

As of Monday, the refreshed Hyatt Place brand will offer World of Hyatt members some additional perks. Specifically, Explorist and Globalist members will be able to take advantage of early check-in — beginning in early 2019. In addition, beginning in early 2019, World of Hyatt members will also be able to take advantage of mobile entry.

Additionally, the Hyatt Place brand is introducing free breakfast for all World of Hyatt members who book directly with Hyatt. This is a great update to the brand — especially so because the benefit isn’t restricted to elites. Instead, all World of Hyatt members can access the “wholistic, regional and craft food offerings” at Hyatt Place breakfasts as long as you book directly with Hyatt. Non-World of Hyatt members can either pay for breakfast or sign up for the program at check-in to get the complimentary meal. In addition, guests staying with the World of Hyatt member can also take advantage of the free breakfast benefit.

The complimentary breakfast benefit begins on November 1, 2018. Hyatt says that it will honor the free breakfast for eligible members even for reservations made before Monday’s announcement. Currently, breakfast is complimentary for all guests.

Well-Being Experiences

Finally, Hyatt is expanding its well-being options for guests with its relationship with Exhale, the spa and fitness brand. At Hyatt Place hotels, guests can expect to find built-in programming on in-room TVs for video content with Exhale’s fitness and mindfulness programs. The videos will also be integrated into the Hyatt mobile app, coming no later than 2019.

In addition, Hyatt announced that it’s enhancing the fitness facilities in its Hyatt Place properties, including offering more space for yoga and stretching within its gyms. Guests can also expect to take advantage of app-based well-being partnerships, such as a bike-sharing platform.

Overall, the changes seem to be a positive for guests. While details remain scarce on the timeline for a majority of the changes — especially for the restyling of rooms and properties — free breakfast for all World of Hyatt members as of late 2018 is a sure highlight. Monday’s announcement follows some speculation that the brand was considering charging $10 for breakfast for guests. Thankfully, Hyatt has finalized its decision to take the more customer-friendly approach when it comes to breakfast.

The Hyatt Place brand was originally launched 12 years ago, and has since been one of Hyatt’s mainstays for business travelers. Hyatt says that in the past five years, the Hyatt Place brand has grown by 75%, with a portfolio now totaling more than 305 hotels in 200 cities around the world.

This really seems like a nothing-burger.

Breakfast: Really, this is just a way to charge people for breakfast if they don't book through Hyatt. I doubt that the breakfast itself will change significantly.
Early check-in: I've checked in early plenty of times, and never had any issues. At airport locations, I've checked in as early as 8AM and they were fine with it.
Mobile Entry: They've been testing this for three years (GH San Fran and HR Bellevue). It was going to roll out at some point to some portion of properties. Pretty much the properties that already have the contactless (as opposed to the mag stripe) are pretty easy to switch over.
Exhale videos: Sure, I guess. They have exercise videos available on demand on the TV and on the phone app. I'd imagine these will likely get pushed out to all brands as well (since it doesn't cost them anything above what they'd be doing at HP).

So I'll give them that as long as you typically book through Hyatt (I mean, this is FT, so we all do, right?) this isn't a devaluation. I'm still not sure that this is a "different vision for the future" - the only really noticeable thing is that they're going to refresh the bedroom furniture?

What was not mentioned in their PR pieces but which Skift reported on here, is that there will be changes to the HP prototype:
https://skift.com/2018/06/04/hyatt-p...ess-travelers/

"There will also be an expansion of the guestroom types available, making it easier for hotel owners to have more flexible room types, including one room prototype that’s 15 percent smaller than existing standard rooms."

I didn't know smoking dope was legal in Chicago. Calling this "a great update" is a joke.

^ I'd imagine the easiest method would be to give out paper vouchers at check in (although not sure how that will work with their push into mobile checkin and keyless entry), but even with that, unless they are expecting a drastic decrease in the number of guests getting the free breakfast, I don't see how the staff would be able to police it. As it is, my experience with HP is that the staff have trouble keeping up with just having clean plates, glasses and flatware stocked.

Dump the coffee makers
 

Having acceptable free coffee available in the lobby 24/7 would be a good compromise.

The TPG "article" is basically a re-branded PR piece. Journalists of any integrity would have called out the dishonest spinning of devaluation of the current free breakfast for all as a positive change.

Perhaps I'm too cynical, but I see this "announcement" as a way to (eventually) charge for breakfast, to put HP on the same playing field as 4 Points by Sheraton. The "five types of rooms" is a way to allow hotels to deny an award night even when the hotel is empty. Simply assign no rooms to the lowest category, and they're always "sold out". All in all, this announcement is probably a lot more "bad news" than "good news".

LOL. TPG is such a buffoon.

I'm assuming that when Hyatt says members have to book "direct" to continue receiving breakfast, the exclusion is referring to OTAs and NOT corporate booking portals? (As in, WOH members booking through Concur, etc. will still receive breakfast?)