From a single Los Angeles motel to a multi-billion-dollar global chain, Hyatt is redefining the meaning of luxury. After leading the company for almost two decades, CEO Mark Hoplamazian gives us an inside look at the hotel operator’s newest frontier: a full-scale brand reorganization designed for the next generation. By shifting from real estate ownership to high-margin luxury experiences, Hyatt is doubling down on the future of luxury travel. In this episode of Behind the Business, Fortune’s Matt Heimer explores how Hoplamazian and Hyatt are navigating transformation in a shifting travel landscape.

Hyatt Hotel’s extensive portfolio features over 1,450 hotels and resorts spread across over 80 countries, ranging from more affordable standard hotel rooms to luxury all-inclusive resorts. Now, in order to meet shifting travel trends and remain competitive among rivals many times its size, Hyatt is nearing the final stages of a full-scale brand reorganization. Here’s why Hyatt is selling real-estate and investing in luxury, experiences, and tech-backed trip planning to book the next generation of travelers.

Why Hyatt is Leaning into Luxury | Behind the Business

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How do you actually deliver what the brand promises that actually requires two things. First, super clarity about what the brand stands for and why it is positioned that way to be responsive to what the guest base needs. From its modest motel beginnings, Hyatt has constructed one of the largest hotel and resort portfolios in the world. The company remains far smaller than industry leaders Hilton and Mary. It and rising operational expenses, travel uncertainty, and external shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic have made growth difficult. Hyatt's strategy sell real estate and invest in expanding its luxury brands. Instead of splitting your attention between being a great property owner, we are now really focused on brand building and investing in the brands backed by data-driven. Loyalty programs and new brand acquisitions. H Hyatt is positioning itself to expand its lead in luxury and experiential travel. Younger consumers are spending on these really specialized experiences. It's not a one size fits all anymore. Here's why Hyatt is building brands instead of hotels in order to keep the next generation of travelers checked in. In 1957, a Chicago lawyer named Jay Pritzker purchased and opened the Hyatt House, a motel near LAX. Hyatt has steadily expanded since then into one of the largest companies in the hospitality industry, built in part by veteran CEO Mark Holomasian. This is our founder. Yes, right, Jay Prisker. Yeah. Since stepping into the role in 2006, Hoelmazian has led Hyatt through an IPO, managed the company through the turbulent. COVID-19 pandemic and more than tripled the total number of branded properties in Hyatt's worldwide portfolio. Today, Halomasian is steering Hyatt through the later stages of a massive brand reorganization centered around an asset light strategy. This means selling real estate and transitioning to fee-based revenue streams. These might include earnings from managing and operating hotels or licensing properties to franchisees. In 2025, 80% of Hyatt's profits came from this kind of fee-based revenue, up from just 57% in 2019. And by the end of the year, the company had reached its goal of raising $2 billion in physical asset sales. Hyatt aims to have over 90% of its earnings be asset light by 2027. During your time as CEO, you led Hyatt through what's called an asset light transformation. Why did Choose to do that and what has been the impact of it. It really focuses one's attention. Instead of splitting your attention between being a great property owner and asset manager and a brand builder, we are now really focused on brand building and investing in the brands and the technology platform behind that. So you're really now you're much more focused on talent and marketing and public messaging without necessarily having to worry as much about plumbing, parking, maintenance. You're right. Halimasian and Hyatt's brand strategy organizes the company into 5 distinct brand groups luxury, lifestyle, inclusive, classics, and essentials. Luxury includes some of Hyatt's most upscale brands like the Park Hyatt, while essentials brands like H Hyatt Studios offer a more straightforward business hotel type experience. Marriott and Hilton, both of whose property and financial portfolios are considerably bigger than Hyatt's are also going asset light. In fact, both started their transitions to an asset light model before Hyatt. In order to differentiate itself, Hyatt is leaning into one of the fastest growing sectors in the industry, luxury travel. I think in your Q3 report, the company mentioned that it seemed like from the consumer side, the luxury and lifestyle segment was the one where the demand seemed strongest, where economic threats seemed least. Is that still the case? Do you still feel like luxury is where the growth is going to come from? Absolutely, we have the biggest representation proportionately speaking in our portfolio of luxury and lifestyle versus our competitors, so we've been advantaged during this period of time when luxury has been the strongest segment. I think 26, no matter what happens, the so-called K-shaped economy is going to persist. That doesn't make me happy, by the way. We have to recognize that that's what's happening. And so I do think that luxury will be the highest performer. And this is a very big change in psychology. Hyatt is already a leader in luxury travel. More than 70% of Hyatt's rooms are luxury or upper upscale compared to Marriott at 51% and Hilton at 28%. Since announcing its asset light strategy in 2017, Hyatt has acquired around 10 luxury and upscale hotel lines, including Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Dream Hotel Group, to add to its brand groups. It's a vibe, right? Right? Exactly. It is a vibe and it's a stunning vibe. Yes, it is happening today too, isn't it? Laurie? You're the first global executive I've ever interviewed in front of a basketball hoop. Where are we? What is this place? Yeah, isn't it great? We are in the Chicago Athletic Association. It started as a men's club in the 1890s, has been reimagined as a hotel, and came into the H Hyatt portfolio in 2019. I've got the beautiful Gothic architecture and the crazy carvings. I do not see a Hyatt logo anywhere. Is that intentional? And if it is, how come? Yeah, for this hotel, the Chicago Athletic Association, it is part of the Unbound collection. And what is special about the Unbound collection is every property is unique and historic and tells its own story. May I see the ballroomhould we go check it out? Can we see the ballroom? Let's go to the ballroom. Younger consumers are spending on experiences. This is. The White City Ballroom we're working on curating different types of collections of properties that will tailor to more romantic travel or outdoor luxury travel. It's not a one size fits all anymore. It's these really specialized experiences. I know that the past several years on the branding topic that there have been some really key acquisitions for H Hyatt, especially in the luxury space. Bringing in other brands into the portfolio where from a customer's perspective we're not necessarily going to know about the Hyatt affiliation. How does that sort of change the challenge of maintaining the focus of the company? We have over 62 million loyalty members and the program has been extremely healthy. It's been growing at a 20% compounded growth rate in the last several years straight. When we designed World of Hyatt, it was designed as an experience platform, not as a points program. A lot of loyalty programs are basically The transactional in nature and we wanted it to be something that was actually meaningful to our members. Yes, it's points. It includes points, but we view points as a means to an end that's not just a room night but an overall experience. When you talk about points being about experiences as well as loyalty, does that mean in practice that the points can also be used for things outside of just the stay? We launched a world of Hyatt find experiences also about. Two years ago now and we have experiences on properties we have experiences that we call limited time experiences. What are some travel trends that you're thinking about that are sort of specific to 2026? New things coming down the pike or things that you're going to see expanding? Experiential travel is not slowing down, whether it's for sporting events. We've got some big ones coming to the US, whether it's music or these more niche things are really. Unique one that we launched was with Reese's Book Club. We brought the authors of the month and we hosted reading retreats as part of an outdoor luxury collection experience. So something that we're seeing with travel is in not just experiences but these sort of niche experiences as the brand portfolio expands with the kind of acquisitions you've been describing, how do you make sure that the experience. The customer and that the company's values are consistent across these platforms, especially when some of these platforms to a consumer may not even be recognizable as a Hyatt. If you understand what people actually need, then you can actually appropriately care for them. So that is at the foundation and the core of every single touch point that you would experience across the Hyatt offerings across every brand, across every country, and across all the other experiences. In order to better recognize and deliver these experiences, Hyatt is investing in AI and in-depth data analytics and building personalized intent-based search tools configured around users' individual travel preferences. How do you keep a sense of brand and company identity consistent across experiences in a world where AI is playing a bigger role perhaps in connecting your customers to you? We characterize AI as an augmentation of how you can get closer to your customers, removing a bunch of the administrative tasks that our frontline colleagues are actually burdened with currently. It gives them more time to just be human, human to human interaction. There is so much new technology that helps us to deliver really personalized and tailored content, and now we can speak to you as an individual differently than the next member. The other thing it allows you to do is capture information on that individual that you would never otherwise be able to get true fidelity of information about Matt and his family so that we can better care for you in the future. You became CEO in 2006, and that means that this bare wall that we're walking towards is going to be the wall that gets the next chapter. What are the things that you most want to see on that wall? We've changed the profile of the company and now the launch point from this point forward is how we actually corralling and using the best of technology to continuously make our colleagues' lives easier, make our guests' lives better, and how we can care for more people.