Hyatt Hotels Sees 2023 as Breakout Year for Europe and China

25.08.2023 - 13:39 / skift.com / Mark Hoplamazian / Sean Oneill / Hyatt Hotels

Hyatt Hotels Corp. raised its financial outlook for the year ahead, calling out expected strength in Europe and Asia Pacific as especially key factors for its hotels and resorts, which skew to premium and luxury segments.

“This is really the breakout year for Europe,” said President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian on an earnings call Thursday. “I thought 2022 was going to be the breakout year for Europe. I was off by a year. We’re seeing people come back to travel, including business travel, in a more pronounced way relative to 2019.”

The Chicago, Illinois-based hotel operator has also been expanding its footprint in Asia Pacific, where it expects to see a strong recovery this year from the pandemic as China rebounds.

The company’s room count in Asia Pacific was 46 percent larger as of March 30 than it was in March 2019.

Now that pandemic restrictions have been lifted, the main force holding back Asia Pacific’s recovery of international travel has been a lack of flight capacity. But airlines are adding flights for the rest of the year.

“When you think about the tailwind of when those when that flight capacity returns into China, there is there’s a lot of room for growth in the regions,” said chief financial officer Joan Bottarini.

But it wasn’t just in Europe and in the Asia Pacific region where the company has seen growth.

“In April, we saw 8 percent growth [worldwide] over 2019, which is similar to what we saw in March,” Bottarini said.

Business transient had the strongest relative recovery worldwide, with March especially encouraging, reaching 92 percent of March 2019 levels.

The company expected returning group reservations for its banquet halls and resilient demand for its all-inclusive resorts leading it to a strong year.

The company generated an average revenue per available room — a key industry metric — of $130.54 in the first quarter, or up 6 percent compared to the first quarter of 2019 for the same set of comparable properties.

The company raised its forecast for its revenue per available room, saying that figure would now grow between 12 percent and 16 percent this year.

The company’s pricing remained strong, especially at its luxury properties like Grand Hyatt, Park Hyatt, and Andaz.

“We continue to see extraordinary pricing for our comparable systemwide luxury brands, which increased 7 percent over the first quarter this year with an average daily rate of about $300 [$297.59] for the quarter,” Hoplamazian said. “This is particularly impressive given the strong rate realization we are lapping from last year.”

But occupancy across all its brands still hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Hyatt’s systemwide occupancy was 64.5 percent, down significantly from the 74.1 percent it enjoyed