Hyatt Hotels Corporation is an international
operator of
hotels.
Mark S. Hoplamazian is the current President and
CEO of Hyatt Hotels Corporation. He took over the position on
November 28, 2006.
Hyatt Center
(completed in 2005 & located in downtown
Chicago at 71 South Wacker Drive) is the headquarters for Hyatt
corporation. Prior to this, the corporate headquarters was
around the corner at 200 West Madison Street.
History
Hyatt
Hotels Corporation was born upon purchase of the Hyatt House, at
Los Angeles
International Airport
on September 27, 1957. The original owners
were entrepreneurs,
Hyatt von Dehn
and
Jack D. Crouch. Von Dehn was eager to get out of the
hotel business after a few years, so he sold his share in the hotel
to
Jay Pritzker. Jay's younger brother
Donald took over day-to-day operations of the company and acquired
motels and hotels, building a brand that remains among the leading
names in the hospitality industry. Under Donald's leadership, Hyatt
became the fastest growing hotel chain in the United States until
his death in 1972.
Hyatt
became famous after the chain opened the world's first atrium hotel
in 1967, the Hyatt Regency Atlanta
, a decade after opening its first
hotel.
In 1969, Donald opened Hyatt's first overseas hotel, the Hyatt
Regency Hong Kong (which closed at the end of 2005 and was
demolished, the new one will open in 2009
[43711]). In 1980, the Grand Hyatt and Park
Hyatt brands were introduced.
Hyatt has become known for its resorts after
the opening of Hyatt Regency Maui
in
1980. Today Hyatt has over 340 hotels worldwide.
In 1972,
Hyatt formed Elsinore
Corporation, a subsidiary to operate the Four Queens
Hotel and Casino
and the Hyatt Lake
Tahoe. After Hyatt became a private company in 1979,
Elsinore was spun off into a public company.
The company opened the
Playboy Hotel
and Casino
as a joint venture with Playboy Enterprises.
In
December 2004, Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced it would acquire
AmeriSuites, an upscale chain of all
suite business class hotels from affiliates of the Blackstone Group, a New York
based
private equity investment firm. Blackstone had inherited
AmeriSuites from its 2004 acquisition of Prime Hospitality. The
AmeriSuites chain is being rebranded and converted to a new concept
called Hyatt Place. With Hyatt Place, Hyatt Hotels Corporation will
better compete with the limited service products Courtyard by
Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn offered by industry leaders Marriott
International and Hilton Hotels Corp.
In December 2005, Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced a second
limited service acquisition,
Summerfield Suites. Again the seller was
the
Blackstone Group. Blackstone
had inherited Summerfield Suites from its purchase of
Wyndham International. Summerfield
Suites will be rebranded as Hyatt
Summerfield Suites and positioned to
compete in the upscale extended stay market against brands such as
Residence Inn, Homewood Suites and
Staybridge Suites.
On
August 6 2009, it
was reported that Hyatt Hotels Corporation filed plans to raise up
to $1.15 billion in an initial share sale.
Hyatt plans to list
the shares on the New York Stock Exchange
under the symbol H. According to
the filing,
Mark S. Hoplamazian will serve as
CEO and
Thomas Pritzker will serve as
Executive Chairman. The public offering is a result
of the breakup of the Pritzker family empire. Accused of looting
family trusts, Thomas and cousins Penny and Nicholas were forced to
wrest control of the family businesses when she and other family
members were sued by cousin
Liesel
Pritzker claiming fraud and seeking damages in excess of $6
billion .
In September
2009 three Hyatt hotels in Boston
laid off their entire housekeeping staffs, outsourcing the work to
a Georgia company for wages that were approximately half of those
of the fired workers, creating strong public backlash.
Massachusetts Governor
Deval Patrick
threatened a boycott of the hotels by state employees traveling on
official business.
Brands
The Hyatt Group operates several chains of hotel. The Hyatt Regency
brand is the oldest brand in the Hyatt hotel chain, with the Grand
Hyatt and Park Hyatt brands being introduced in 1980. Of these
properties, some are styled as "Resort" properties, and may feature
spas or other recreational facilities.
Other brands include the Hyatt Place concept, designed as a limited
service offering targeted to the business traveler. An extended
stay chain,
Summerfield Suites,
was acquired by Hyatt in 2005, and features 20 locations in the
United states. Hyatt also launched a new brand, Andaz, in April
2007.
The
first hotel to bear this brand is be The Great Eastern Hotel in
London
, with additional properties planned for New York
and Austin, TX
.
In addition to hotels, the Hyatt Group also operates apartment
properties. These properties, called the Hyatt Residency, are
co-located with Grand or Park Hyatt properties. The group also
offers retail home décor and furnishings through Hyatt at Home, an
online store featuring luxury products.
Notable properties
- Atlanta: The Hyatt Regency Atlanta was built in 1967 and was the
first contemporary atrium hotel in the world. The hotel is also
notable for being the first Regency hotel in the Hyatt brand. The
hotel was influential in helping Atlanta develop into the
international destination that it is today, and to this day remains
the only major downtown Atlanta hotel with a front drive on the
famed Peachtree Street. Architect
John Portman designed building was the original Hyatt Regency
property, was the first hotel centered around an atrium
- Buenos Aires: Hyatt Hotels acquired the
Duhau Palace, a Neoclassical former residence
inspired in the Château du
Marais, in 2002, and following the addition of a 13-story annex
at the other end of the property, opened the Park Hyatt
Buenos Aires
in 2006.
- Cairo: Located on Al-Roda Island, the Grand Hyatt Egypt was
built in 1998 with 41 floors and 714 rooms. The hotel includes a
shopping mall and there is a rotating restaurant.
- Cleveland: The Hyatt Regency Cleveland, is
located in the 1890s built Cleveland, Ohio
Arcade. The Cleveland Arcade
was a shopping center, but between 1998-2002 was
renovated as the Hyatt Regency Hotel. There is some retail
on the two stories, and the rooms follow after that. In addition
there is a five-star restaurant named 1890, a reference of the year
the Cleveland Arcade opened.
- Connecticut: The Hyatt Regency Greenwich,
located in Old
Greenwich
, CT is on
the site of the former world headquarters of Conde Nast Publishing and retains the
original building's corner tower.
- Dallas: The Hyatt Regency Dallas, along with
the fifty-story Reunion
Tower
, were featured prominently at the beginning of the
opening credits of the television series Dallas.
- Hollywood: The Continental Hyatt Hotel was
in the movie Almost Famous
starring Kate Hudson (2000), and its
pool has featured in several films including This is Spinal Tap (1984), and the
Park Hyatt Hotel in Century
City
was the scene of the famous "6th floor into
swimming pool" scene in the 1989 movie Lethal Weapon 2 starring Mel Gibson and Danny
Glover.
- New
Jersey: The Jersey City Hyatt Regency is also used as headquarters
for the NJ
Clean Energy Conference.
- San Francisco: The Hyatt Regency San Francisco formerly
provided a rooftop revolving
restaurant called Equinox, offering 360-degree views of the
city and the bay – the restaurant is now an elite club for certain
hotel guests only and it no longer rotates. This hotel was sold for
close to $200 million to Dune Capital Management and DiNapoli
Capital Partners in January 2007 – roughly $250,000 for each of the
hotels 802 rooms. The property has been used several times as a
filming location, featured most prominently in the 1977 Mel Brooks comedy High Anxiety.
- Shanghai: The Grand Hyatt
Shanghai
is located in the Jin Mao Tower
(floors 53 to 87). It has a ballroom for
1200 people, and meeting rooms which seat 400 comfortably.
The Park
Hyatt occupying the 79th to 93rd floors of the Shanghai
World Financial Center
, is considered the highest hotel in the
world. SWFC measures 492 meters and has 101 stories.
- Tokyo: The Park Hyatt Tokyo was featured prominently in the
movie Lost in
Translation, and also in an episode of I Survived a Japanese Game
Show where that episode's winning team stayed in the suite
featured in that movie worth $12,000/night, plus a personal
chef.
World events and Hyatt
Trinidad
– The 2009 Summit of the Americas, to be held at
the Hyatt Regency Trinidad
Australia – The 2006 G20
Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors was held at
the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne
between November 18 and November 19,
2006.
Israel
– On
November 17, 2001, Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi was assassinated in the Jerusalem Hyatt Regency on
Mount
Scopus
.
Jordan
– On
November 9, 2005, the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Amman, Jordan was
targeted by a series of coordinated terrorist attacks along with a
Radisson SAS and a Days Inn hotel.
Philippines
– The Hyatt Terraces Baguio in the northern city of
Baguio
collapsed
after a July 16, 1990 earthquake.
United States
- During Hurricane Katrina, the Hyatt Regency Hotel
in New Orleans,
Louisiana
received significant damage as almost all of its
windows were blown out and the bottom floor was torn apart by
flood damage. This hotel located in
the Central Business District
has not re-opened.
- The
Hyatt Regency Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri
was the site of one of the worst hotel disasters in
US history. On July 17, 1981 two of the three skybridges
that transversed the hotel's lobby collapsed
during a tea dance. The walkways were packed
with people when a structural failure occurred causing one bridge,
which was hung from the bridge above it, to pull both bridges loose
from the ceiling and collapse. 114 people were killed and over 200
were injured. The hotel was later renamed the Hyatt
Regency Crown
Center
.
Hyatt Gold Passport
Hyatt Gold Passport is Hyatt's hotel rewards or
loyalty program. Membership is free and can
be completed either online or with the assistance of a reception
desk agent at the hotel. Points can be accumulated and used for
redemption nights, upgrades or converted into airline miles with
partnering airlines.
Membership levels
- Gold- The basic level of membership. You can
start accumulating points towards free nights starting with the
first stay.
- Platinum- Earned after 5 eligible stays or 15
eligible nights, whichever comes first.
- Diamond- Earned after 25 eligible stays or 50
eligible nights, whichever comes first.
Gallery
File:Shanghai Grand Hyatt Atrium.jpg|Looking
up inside the 32-story atrium of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt, part of
the Jin Mao
Tower
File:HollywoodHyatt 03.jpg|Hyatt West
Hollywood
in West Hollywood, California
File:Hyatt-regency-atlanta-side.jpg|Hyatt
Regency in Atlanta,
Georgia
File:Cidade de São Paulo.jpg|Hyatt Regency
in São
Paulo
, Brazil
File:32396hyattregency06fl.jpg|Hyatt Regency
in Delhi
, India
File:Hyatt Regency Cologne (2007) 2.jpg|A
Hyatt Regency in
Cologne, Germany. The
KölnTriangle is in the background
File:Hyattregencysantaclara.jpg|A Hyatt
Regency in Santa Clara, California
, in the United States, Westin
HotelFile:HyattOrlandoAirport.jpg|Hyatt Regency
at Orlando
International Airport
File:Hotel Hyatt Regency Kiev.JPG|Hotel
Hyatt Regency Kiev in Kiev
, Ukraine
File:arcade.jpg | Hyatt Regency in Cleveland
, Ohio
File:Palacioduhau.JPG|The Park Hyatt of
Buenos
Aires
, Argentina
Notes
-
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/December-2002/Tremors-in-the-Empire/
- Atlanta hotels
- Maui Hotels
- Hyatt Locations
-
http://www.vanityfair.com/fame/features/2003/05/andrews200305
- Whitford, David, " A mess: Hyatt's housekeeping scandal",
Fortune, Sep
30, 2009.
- Hyatt Hotels Corporation Announces
Andaz(TM)
- Hyatt's New Andaz Brand to Open in Austin's East
Avenue Development :: Hotel News Resource
- Park Hyatt Buenos Aires
- http://www.njcleanenergy.com/
- San Francisco Regency – Sold
- Shanghai Hotels
External links