Hyatt launched the Andaz brand in 2007, and the brand now has 18 hotels in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Personally I’m a fan of the brand, though there’s no denying that the growth pace has been incredibly slow, as opening just 18 hotels in over a decade isn’t exactly impressive.
Continue reading: Hyatt Capital Gate Abu Dhabi Rebranding As An Andaz
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I too never understood the differentiation between the "Hyatt" and "Hyatt Regency" branded hotels. I asked on the FT Hyatt board and the response I mainly got was that it was a legacy issue and/or that plain "Hyatts" were slightly smaller. It seemed a completely redundant brand which muddied up the hierarchy of Park Hyatt > Grand Hyatt > Hyatt/Hyatt Regency > Hyatt Place, Hyatt House
When I was a kid, it seemed like there were as many Hyatts as Hiltons, with more of each than Marriotts. Of course, I’m old enough to remember the “Hyatt House” motels, so times changes all things.
The rebranding has been in the works for at least 3 years (staff talking about it), and I think everyone realised this property was misbranded from the very beginning.
It really can't be a Regency since it lacks a lot of the brand standards such as meeting space and banequeting/F&B - (while far exceeding the standard in other areas), the lack of such facilities is ironic since its a convention center hotel, but it is that way because the convention facilities aren't hotel exclusive, rather the hotel is part of a larger complex (that also includes the Aloft). At 189 rooms, its also a bit too small for a convention center hotel...
This hotel fit the profile of a lifestyle brand from the very beginning (2011) but at the time Hyatt had no suitable brands (Centric and Unbound came later, Andaz was still too new). Fees for brands such as Andaz are much higher than Hyatt whereas Andaz carries none of the advantages of the Hyatt name. For 90% of booking.com guests, Hyatt means a lot more than Andaz and they would pick a Hyatt over an Andaz if paying with own money.
A lot of the conversion properties (acquired) and misbranded properties tend to be given the Hyatt brand until they are renovated or transitioned into something else (this is true of their recent acquisitions in France and India for instance).
Since Hyatt is absolutely struggling (vs Marriott/Starwood and Accor) in UAE and India (both under SWA and India too recently had a bunch of rebrandings), I'm willing to bet concessions were made in this deal for the owner.
With 3 hotels, Abu Dhabi is now probably their strongest market in all of Middle East and India (relative to competition, they obviously have more than double the hotels in Dubai but are weaker relative to competition there).
There is an Andaz in the initial planning stages for La Mer Dubai as well.
I always thought the Hyatt v Regency v Grand had to do with he amount of meeting space available. Regency had most and was for convention hotels, while plain Hyatt had the least.