Hilton’s CEO on new brands, legacy and the booming business of Hilton Honors loyalty

26.06.2024 - 21:35 / thepointsguy.com / Christopher Nassetta

When Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta took on the top job at the hotel giant in 2007, the company wasn't exactly known for thinking outside the box or trendy brands.

"We were complacent. There was no culture of innovation. It was more a culture of do it at a relatively slow pace and do it the way we've always done it," Nassetta once told the Washington Post. "It just wasn't organized in the right way."

But fast forward 17 years, and Hilton is a hotel force to be reckoned with. The brand increasingly has something to offer for all types of travelers with all types of budgets.

Luxury camping? Check. Lifestyle hotels? Check (and with major plans to grow). Classic ultra-luxury? You bet. Oh, and don't forget how the company snatched away a Small Luxury Hotels of the World partnership from Hyatt earlier this year.

Ah, yes — and there's also what some see as the company's "category killer" debut in the economy space with Spark, a brand launched last year that will typically target the $100 per night hotel space.

So, what has changed at Hilton over the years from that era of complacency?

"I'd say our secret sauce in terms of performance is grit, determination, competitiveness and an entrepreneurial spirit to do it differently," Nassetta said in an interview with TPG this month at the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference.

With a current roster of 24 hotel brands — from the affordably priced Spark to the high-end Waldorf Astoria — and a loyalty program that's nearly 190 million people strong, the company is making significant growth and many changes, achieved primarily via the organic growth of launching brands internally rather than acquiring them.

But even that changed slightly over the last year, as the company acquired the Graduate lifestyle hotel brand and also took a majority stake in the parent company of NoMad Hotels in a quest to beef up its presence in luxury lifestyle hotels.

"I was an M&A guy in my background, so it's not like I don't like doing it," Nassetta said of buying brands as opposed to building them organically. "But at my core, I'm a very disciplined person. So, the filter of what makes sense for our customer [and] what makes sense for our shareholders in terms of the economics have always been my North Star."

While Nassetta declined to weigh in on industry chatter that Hilton Honors is within striking distance of overtaking Marriott Bonvoy as the largest hotel loyalty program, he was more than happy to point out the strength and expansion of Hilton's network.

Hilton Honors adds roughly 80,000 new members a day, and the overall loyalty program accounts for about 64% of total Hilton room night bookings. The goal is to get that to 65% by year's end, and Nassetta