AWESOME: Hyatt Announces Acquisition Of Up To 85 New Luxury Hotels

AWESOME: Hyatt Announces Acquisition Of Up To 85 New Luxury Hotels

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One of Hyatt’s big weaknesses has been that they lack the global footprint of Hilton, IHG, or Marriott. They’ve struggled to grow, especially in the full service sector. We’ve heard several rumors of them acquiring other brands, though it has never worked out… at least until now. That’s why this announcement is really exciting.

Hyatt is acquiring Two Roads Hospitality

Hyatt has today announced that they’re acquiring Two Roads Hospitality, an international lifestyle hotel management company with a collection of luxury hotels.

With this acquisition, Hyatt will take over management agreements for the majority of the 85 properties in eight countries that belong to their collection. This will allow Hyatt to expand their presence into 23 new markets, while also adding more options in existing markets.


Alila Jabal-Akhdar

Here’s what Hyatt’s CEO had to say about the acquisition:

“Hyatt and Two Roads share a commitment to genuine care and delivering distinctive experiences to discerning travelers. We are pleased to be coming together, and are dedicated to learning from each other and taking the best of both organizations forward. Two Roads’ passionate team members, strong brands, global footprint and robust development pipeline will expand our lifestyle offerings and grow Hyatt’s brand presence in more places where our guests and World of Hyatt members want to travel. Importantly, combining Two Roads’ meaningful brand presence and development plans in Asia with Hyatt’s already strong position in this region will allow us to accelerate expansion in this critically important and fast-growing part of the world.”

The acquisition consists of a base purchase price of $480 million, “with the potential for Hyatt to invest up to an additional $120 million in the aggregate, contingent on the outcome of certain terms to be individually defined after closing.”

The transaction is expected to close later this year. When that happens, Hyatt is expected to create a dedicated lifestyle division to bring together the operations of these brands. Hyatt says that they plan to integrate Two Roads into World of Hyatt in 2019, which should give World of Hyatt members more opportunities to earn and redeem points.


Alila Fort-Bishangarh

My thoughts on this acquisition

While this isn’t the biggest acquisition out there, I’m thrilled to see this, because these are truly some excellent hotels. You can find the listing of all Two Roads Hospitality properties here. Brands included with this include Alila, Destination, Joie de Vivre, Thompson, tommie, and more.

I imagine most of these properties will be fully integrated into the World of Hyatt program, which is an awesome development.


Alila Ubud

However, I doubt all hotels will join Hyatt, since Two Roads Hospitality also has some hotels belonging to other brands with major loyalty programs, like the Hilton Denver Inverness, for example.

Obviously Hyatt struggles with not being as big as some other brands, and this acquisition won’t help them with appealing to the average business traveler who needs more options in major cities. However, as someone who loves unique luxury hotels and loyalty programs, I couldn’t be more thrilled with this.

To me this is more exciting than if Hyatt had acquired Radisson or another mega-brand.

I’ll be curious to see how they integrate the brand into World of Hyatt, though. Will the properties feature full elite benefits, will most properties be priced under Hyatt’s current award chart, or what?

This is exciting, along with World of Hyatt and Small Luxury Hotels of the World also announcing a partnership.

What do you make of Hyatt’s acquisition of Two Roads Hospitality?

Conversations (22)
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  1. Jason Guest

    Some of those Joie de Vivre properties are hardly luxurious.

  2. Evan Gold

    FWIW, Two Roads is 40% owned by Geolo Capital which is owned by John Pritzker, brother of Hyatt's Chairman.

  3. Creditian Guest

    Aloft Charlotte???????

  4. Bob Kelly New Member

    Wow, great...however confusing news. I see at least a few of these properties which were under the Starwood banner and now obviously are Marriott properties such as the Talisa in Vail, CO. Can someone let me know how the same property will exist under the Marriott and Hyatt banners? Or will one assume control?

  5. Rob in Miami Member

    Nice blend for Hyatt (which I always thought was a quality bland Chicago product that lagged behind Starwood......... (with Marriott being the most bland).
    This now expands Hyatt with the excellent product of Thompson Hotels.
    They have bought their properties in the past (Miami Beach).
    It gives them the asian quality boutiques with Alila (sp?).
    Starwood has DesignHotels.com
    This really helps Hyatt with locations at TabletHotels.com

    smart move

  6. HeavenlyJane Guest

    Wow! This can't happen quick enough for me. The portfolio is mouthwatering.

  7. Luis Diamond

    Would love to redeem points for a stay at The Cape in Cabo.

  8. Mary Member

    Doesn't help the global footprint but there are some great places on this list that I love staying at.

  9. Super Guest

    I've recently had some chances to stay at small boutique hotels and it's a refreshingly unique experience. Love this news + the SLH partnership. Can't wait to stay at Park Hyatt's in bigger cities and then these luxury boutique in smaller cities. This is the kind of stuff that makes me keep coming back to Hyatt over Marriott even though it's harder as a business traveler to stay at Hyatt.

    @Drew considering Hyatt's luxury game...

    I've recently had some chances to stay at small boutique hotels and it's a refreshingly unique experience. Love this news + the SLH partnership. Can't wait to stay at Park Hyatt's in bigger cities and then these luxury boutique in smaller cities. This is the kind of stuff that makes me keep coming back to Hyatt over Marriott even though it's harder as a business traveler to stay at Hyatt.

    @Drew considering Hyatt's luxury game is on point, do you care to expand on your strawman argument? Park Hyatts are amongst the top luxury hotels in the world and are almost always reflective of the environment they are in, unlike the generic luxury of Ritz-Carltons and St Regis.

  10. DaKine Member

    Wow this is awesome. These hotels are great for me... Seattle area, Maui, Bali surf spots, some other cool spots. I was hoping for more Europe... hopefully the Small Luxury additions will beef that up. Definitely looking forward to staying at the Thompson Seattle, best roof in the city.

  11. Stephen Guest

    Well, Accorhotels is French so...

  12. The nice Paul Diamond

    @ Stephen
    "does the EU make it a headache to allow a non-EU company to dominate the European market?"

    Quite the reverse: the EU is all about open markets (with a few exceptions related to "national security", whatever that means).

    Some individual member states are more enthusiastic about the policy than others - the UK sells off its companies to overseas bidders with gay abandon, such that there aren't many UK-owned multinationals left. France...

    @ Stephen
    "does the EU make it a headache to allow a non-EU company to dominate the European market?"

    Quite the reverse: the EU is all about open markets (with a few exceptions related to "national security", whatever that means).

    Some individual member states are more enthusiastic about the policy than others - the UK sells off its companies to overseas bidders with gay abandon, such that there aren't many UK-owned multinationals left. France and Italy, on the other hand, are more, er, protective.

  13. Bob Member

    I’d love to see Hyatt adding more category 3 and 4 properties. We stayed at Alila Uluwatu and it has category 6 or 7 written all over it. It us nice to be able to redeem on aspirational properties but the average Joe’s like me will not do that too often.

  14. Sean Guest

    With the exception of a few resort areas, most of these are largely in areas where Hyatt has coverage. I don't think this moves the needle all that much when you dive deeper into the property locations. If anything this adds a few places in the US, and allows for multiple places in large cities like San Francisco and NYC where you could earn and redeem points.

  15. Andrew Y Member

    This is great news. The Park Hyatt Maldives started life as an Alila, so I imagine there will be some potential re-brand opportunities that will bring a lot of value — Park Hyatt Bali? — to both the brand and also guests.

  16. Stephen Guest

    To what extent is it just hard to expand in Europe through acquisitions due to the EU's anti-monopoly laws? Accorhotels is a very large company -- does the EU make it a headache to allow a non-EU company to dominate the European market?

  17. geoff Guest

    Agree with Hotcrab. Is Hyatt afraid of Europe? I realize their upcoming deal with Fine Hotels or whatever it's called is slated for late '18 closing but until they show us the details of that this latest combination does very little(if anything) to address their tiny European presence.

  18. Hotcrab Guest

    the big problem is their footprint in europe, and this does not help. This seems to have a big overlap with their existing footprint.

  19. BeachMiles New Member

    Excellent. Just for fun, guess what month in 2019 I’ll be able to book an award stay in the new properties.

  20. Sam Guest

    This is awesome news. I stayed at Alila Villas Uluwatu a couple years ago in Bali, and it is breathtaking. Can't wait to take advantage of the new points redemption opportunities this offers.

  21. Drew Guest

    why is this awesome? another cookie cutter brand just putting its vanilla stamp on some beautiful smaller hotels....only awesome for you because you can use your points to get a free room/upgrade.

    1. lucky OMAAT

      @ Drew -- Not just to redeem points, but I'd be much likely to stay at these properties if I could earn elite points. I understand your point, but there's no reason a hotel can't remain unique while joining a global loyalty program. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Featured Comments Most helpful comments ( as chosen by the OMAAT community ).

The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Jason Guest

Some of those Joie de Vivre properties are hardly luxurious.

0
Evan Gold

FWIW, Two Roads is 40% owned by Geolo Capital which is owned by John Pritzker, brother of Hyatt's Chairman.

0
Creditian Guest

Aloft Charlotte???????

0
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