In April 2023, Hyatt unveiled the details of its newest hotel brand, Hyatt Studios. There’s now an update, as details have been revealed about how the brand will participate in World of Hyatt, and it’s not necessarily what you might expect.
What is the new Hyatt Studios brand?
Hyatt Studios is Hyatt’s new extended stay brand, which is described as Hyatt’s entry into the upper-midscale lodging market. The brand was conceived through direct collaboration with hotel developers, and more than 100 letters of interest have already been signed.
The first property will be the Hyatt Studios Mobile, Alabama. It will open on July 1, 2025, and is now accepting reservations. The second property will be the Hyatt Studios Marysville, California, and it’s expected to open later in 2025.
Surprisingly, Hyatt shares that this brand will entirely consist of newly built properties, and not of conversions of existing properties. That’s good news in terms of the guest experience, at least.
The Hyatt Studios brand will offer suites with kitchen amenities (not to be confused with full kitchens). Property amenities will include grab & go breakfast and a 24-hour market (with items that can be prepared in guest room kitchens, using a microwave).
Hyatt Studios will join Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, and Caption by Hyatt, in the select services category. Here’s how Hyatt describes what precipitated this brand:
The immediate interest from the development community in the Hyatt Studios brand is a testament to Hyatt taking a developer-informed approach to creating this brand, prioritizing scalable construction options and an efficient operating model designed to adapt to local market needs across primary, secondary and tertiary markets alike. The brand is designed to be flexible based on developer needs, accommodating both extended-stay and shorter length-of-stay leisure and business transient guests depending on the hotel’s market and guest base.
Below you can see renderings of the Hyatt Studios brand.
Hyatt Studios’ participation in World of Hyatt
Hyatt has now revealed what we can expect in terms of how Hyatt Studios will participate in World of Hyatt, and it’s a mixed bag. On the plus side, you’ll earn one elite night per night, stays at Hyatt Studios will count toward the Brand Explorer promotion, and World of Hyatt’s co-branded credit cards will offer 4x points at these properties.
The major catch is that points earning at these properties has been reduced by 50% compared to Hyatt’s existing brands. You’ll only earn 2.5x points per dollar spent at Hyatt Studios properties, rather than the usual 5x points.
That’s of course quite disappointing, but it’s also not surprising. World of Hyatt was the only major hotel loyalty program to not have reduced points earning rates at some of its more limited service properties. At least you earn full elite nights, rather than half elite nights.
Why hotel groups create new hotel brands
Before I share my thoughts on the new Hyatt Studios brand, I think it makes sense to talk about why hotel groups start new hotel brands. It’s not necessarily to be able to sell to consumers, but rather to be able to sell to hotel owners.
For the most part, the global hotel chains don’t own most of their hotels, but rather they have management or franchise agreements for them. The reason they create so many new brands is so they have something to pitch to investors.
They try to make each brand seem unique, in hopes of getting an owner to choose their brand over a competitor. That’s why there’s also such little innovation when it comes to new hotel brands. Instead I feel like we just see each of the major hotel brands introduce similar concepts over and over.
My take on the new Hyatt Studios brand
I guess it’s nice that Hyatt’s portfolio will continue to grow, though everything about this brand screams “quantity over quality.” That’s fair enough, since Hyatt is a publicly traded company, but I can’t imagine I’m alone in not getting very excited here. A few thoughts:
- For a brand consisting exclusively of newly built hotels, I can’t help but find the whole design to be kind of bland, with the exception of a few nice-ish design touches
- I think the key point about Hyatt Studios is that “the brand is designed to be flexible based on developer needs” — in other words, don’t expect much in the form of brand standards, despite this all being newly developed properties
- Hyatt House is supposed to be Hyatt’s extended stay brand featuring kitchens, so is Hyatt Studios different in that there won’t be the same consistent brand standards and this will be a little lower end, or what?
- While I can appreciate when hotels have large suites that have a kitchen area, this room design just looks plain strange to me, with a kitchen just smack dab in the middle of the room
- Frankly many extended stay brands confuse me; what percent of guests really need a full size fridge, when there are limits to what you can really cook and prepare in the room?
- Hyatt states that Hyatt Studios will cater to the “high-end guests within its segment,” so I guess that means it’s more premium than something like Extended Stay Americas?
- While Hyatt is the hotel group I’m most loyal to, I can’t help but point out the amount of brand inflation we’ve seen at Hyatt in recent years; I’m happy to see the increase in number of properties, but the brand inflation is quite something
- We’ve seen several new limited service brands announced recently, including Marriott’s StudioRes, IHG’s Garner, and Hilton’s LivSmart Studios, so I have to say that at least Hyatt’s new extended stay brand looks like one of the more premium versions of these
Bottom line
Hyatt Studios is Hyatt’s newest hotel brand, and it’s an extended stay brand where each room will feature a kitchen of sorts. The big question is what differentiates this from a Hyatt House or Hyatt Place, and it seems that the main difference is that developers have more flexibility.
In other words, don’t expect much in the way of consistency when it comes to design or brand standards. Hyatt Studios will feature a complimentary grab & go breakfast, as well as food for purchase, which you can heat in your microwave. You can expect the first property to open in the middle of 2025.
As far as World of Hyatt participation goes, Hyatt Studios properties will earn elite nights at the standard rates, but will only earn points at 50% of the regular rates.
If you’re not excited, don’t worry. Just remember that these new brands are designed for hotel owners, and we’re just the product.
What do you make of the Hyatt Studios brand?
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