7 insights I learned from Hilton executives on new brands, partnerships and hotel innovations

23.04.2024 - 04:05 / thepointsguy.com

Over the last few months, Hilton has been on a major growth campaign, announcing strategic partnerships and acquisitions to help beef up its global footprint and strengthen its luxury and lifestyle offerings.

On the luxury front, Hilton recently announced it acquired a majority stake in the Sydell Group, the parent company of NoMad Hotels, and plans to integrate the current NoMad properties (Las Vegas and London) into Hilton Honors — and eventually grow the brand to over 100 hotels. This year, we also found out that Hilton was able to snatch away Small Luxury Hotels of the World from Hyatt, a move that will add dozens of incredible one-of-a-kind properties around the world into the Hilton Honors program. Not to mention, the cheeky Graduate Hotels brand and the not-so-roughing-it AutoCamp glamping brand are also new additions to the Hilton family.

With so many new brands and big changes on the horizon, Hilton invited a handful of travel journalists to Nashville, where the company has a significant presence, to spend time with some executives and brand leaders. Over the course of several days, we got to see how Hilton is reimagining some of its most popular brands (read on to see why I'm stoked about a Homewood Suites property), learn a little more about upcoming partnerships and understand how the aforementioned brands will integrate into Hilton Honors.

Here are just a few things I learned — and why there's a lot for Hilton loyalists to look forward to (or, in many folks' cases, why now might be the time to jump on the Hilton bandwagon).

The official news is no news — yet — from Hilton on when SLH will be integrated into Hilton Honors. What we did learn from the folks working to make that transition happen is that we can likely expect award redemptions, elite benefits and earnings for SLH properties to be "in line with" similar existing Hilton properties. I was told we'd find out the specifics on how much award nights might cost and details about elite loyalty benefits hopefully in the coming weeks, though Hilton is still very much ironing out those details.

What I can confirm is simple yet important: Most Small Luxury Hotels will participate in Hilton Honors, and there will be specific benefits for elite Hilton Honors members (potentially free breakfasts, possible room upgrades, early check-in or late checkout, and the like). But, as I was told, Hilton has to "learn the way with Small Luxury Hotels," and it's a work in progress the company would rather roll out correctly than fumble in haste.

Though it felt like Hilton was spitting out new strategic brand partnerships and acquisitions (as mentioned above) rapidly over the last few months, an informal conversation with some Hilton executives makes it