Melissa Dewalt caught the travel bug a decade ago when she drove from her home state of Pennsylvania across the country to California to visit her then-boyfriend. She then road-tripped north to Seattle.
21.08.2024 - 06:30 / skift.com / Sean Oneill / Hyatt Hotels
Hyatt Hotels said Tuesday it planned to buy the brands of Standard International, owner of 21 open hotels across five hospitality brands, including the luxury lifestyle brand The Standard.
Hyatt will pay a base purchase price of $150 million, with up to an additional $185 million over time as additional properties enter the portfolio. Standard International has more than 30 projects with a signed agreement or letter of intent.
The companies expect the deal to close later this year, subject to approvals.
Hyatt confirmed that it will acquire all five brands that Standard International runs: The Standard, The Peri Hotel, Bunkhouse, The StandardX, and The Manner.
Hyatt will not acquire any physical assets. It’s only buying the management, franchise, and license contracts for hotels with approximately 2,000 rooms. Branded residential is Standard International’s latest push, with the group is already selling homes in Midtown Miami, Lisbon, Thailand, and Portugal. Hyatt will also take that on.
Since 2017, Sansiri, a luxury real estate developer based in Thailand, has been Standard International’s majority shareholder.
“The sale will cap a successful investment for Sansiri, which acquired a majority position in Standard International in 2017 and facilitated the company’s international expansion,” Hyatt said in a release. “Sansiri will continue to own several properties that will be managed or franchised under the acquired brands.”
The Standard and related brands are part of a category of hotels that Hyatt and all major hotel groups increasingly covet. While a typical hotel is just a place to sleep, “luxury lifestyle” hotels are boutique-like places where the lobby looks like a modern art gallery and the rooftop bar serves drinks with names you can’t pronounce.
In the past six years, Hyatt has quintupled the number of lifestyle rooms in its portfolio, and Standard International will boost that level further.
By adding properties, there’s a “network effect.’ The more Instagrammable hotels an operator has, the more well-to-do people want to stay there and book directly.
Hyatt said it would form a new “dedicated lifestyle group’ led by Standard International’s Executive Chairman Amar Lalvani. In the new role of president and creative director of the lifestyle group, Lavani will oversee the sharing of best practices across brands while maintaining each brand’s separate identity.
Before founding Standard International with André Balazs, Lavani led the global development of W Hotels.
Moelis acted as Hyatt’s financial advisor on the deal.
CORRECTION: This article originally said Hilton had quadrupled its lifestyle rooms between 2017 and 2023, not quintupled.
Major hotel groups continue to be eager to collect
Melissa Dewalt caught the travel bug a decade ago when she drove from her home state of Pennsylvania across the country to California to visit her then-boyfriend. She then road-tripped north to Seattle.
Ski season is just around the corner, and the Ikon Pass is making it even easier to ski across the country by adding a new California mountain to the mix.
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Clarksville, a historic district of Austin, Texas, has lately emerged as a stylish dining and shopping enclave. Among the area’s most compelling new businesses is La Embajada, a design shop housed in a 1923 Craftsman bungalow. Combining the hospitality and interiors expertise of its founder, Raul Cabra — who has designed tableware for some of Mexico City’s most celebrated restaurants, including Rosetta and Pujol — La Embajada presents a refined, regionally diverse selection of Mexico’s artisanal offerings. A series of small rooms display vintage and contemporary furniture, from stately midcentury armchairs and 1970s glass sconces to a minimalist agave fiber rug by the Oaxaca-based textile artist Trine Ellitsgaard. The house is also an actual residence. Cabra often stays in the bedroom up the creaky stairs, and he’s recently made it available for short-term stays (bookings include a daily basket of baked goods from Austin’s Swedish Hill). Guests can purchase the room’s handmade décor, such as a pair of sleek bedside lamps in milky white onyx, a 1960s La Malinche dresser and a bedspread from a Michoacan manufacturer that once supplied Herman Miller. Downstairs, glassware, candles and gifts fill a section modeled after a typical general store in a small Mexican town. But La Embajada’s heart is its inviting kitchen, where visiting chefs cook elaborate meals and staff prepare ice cream and coffee. In another twist, every bespoke detail — including a hammered copper sink, caramel-colored tiles and waxed pine cabinets — can be custom-ordered for one’s own home.
Can cool and conglomerate coexist — let alone thrive — when it comes to edgy lifestyle brands and multibillion-dollar hotel parent companies?
As the summer travel season comes to a close, travelers have a new way to save on fall getaways. JetBlue recently announced the «Game On» fare sale, which offers flights as low as $49. The promotion is a nod to the fall football season, however the fares can provide an affordable options for early fall vacations, or last-minute trips. As an example, JetBlue shows a fare of $49 one-way from New York's JFK airport to Nashville, Tenn. for travel in both September and October.
Playa Hotels & Resorts has agreed to sell the Jewel Palm Beach for approximately $68 million in cash.
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Hundreds of charter and personal planes touched down on the same tarmac this weekend — and it wasn't in the Hamptons, Lake Tahoe, or any other particularly bougie hot spot. It was a pop-up airport called 88NV in the middle of the Nevada desert.