Dive Brief:

• Hyatt Regency opened two hotels — the Hyatt Regency Baytown-Houston and the Hyatt Regency Conroe — in the Houston area this month, the company announced Thursday. The hotels join the company’s growing Americas presence, which also includes two hotels opened in Mexico this spring and one in Utah last year. 
• The expansion is fueled by strong corporate and group travel recovery in Houston, a popular leisure and business travel destination. 
• The brand is currently undergoing an expansion in the Americas region over the next few years, with forthcoming openings in California and Canada. Elsewhere, Hyatt Regency hotels are undertaking extensive renovations and design refreshes.

Dive Insight:

The Houston openings come on the heels of a strong earnings year for Hyatt. Earlier this month, the company posted its fourth consecutive “record” quarter, with its Americas, Asian Pacific and European, Middle Eastern and African management and franchising segments all generating significant Q1 growth, which Hyatt attributed to increasing travel demand.

The Americas management and franchising segment generated $119 million, up 40.2% from the same time last year. Within the segment, Hyatt attributed results to sustained strength of leisure travel demand and continued improvement in business travel. 

Business transient travel also had its strongest quarter since 2019 in Q1, and group travel revenue surpassed 2019 levels system-wide for Hyatt in the same quarter, according to the release. 

The Hyatt Regency Baytown-Houston, a waterfront hotel, opened May 18. Located by the Fred Hartman suspension bridge, the 208-key hotel is a 20-minute drive from attractions such as NASA’s Space Center Houston and the Kemah Boardwalk. 

The seven-story hotel features window views of the Houston Ship Channel, the marina and the bridge, as well as one full-service dining option and an open-concept lobby bar. The property is also “primed for large scale events,” according to the release, with more than 18,000 square feet of meeting and events space including a 12,000-square-foot ballroom with 20-foot ceilings. 

The 250-room Hyatt Regency Conroe opened May 25. The hotel is in the Texas Piney Woods region, a 20-minute drive from Lake Conroe, a destination for fishing, boating and water sports. The hotel includes a lobby bar and lounge as well as a restaurant featuring both Texas Gulf cuisine and Vietnamese flavors.

The property offers 13 premium suites with flexible workstations, and meeting and events space totalling 30,000 square feet. 

Business trip volume is up as live events return post-pandemic and travel restrictions ease, though corporate travel’s rebound has been slower than leisure travel’s, Deloitte’s recent corporate travel study found. 

With the additional two properties, the Hyatt Regency brand now has 13 Texas hotels. The brand continues to expand throughout the Americas region. Recent openings include the Hyatt Regency Mexico City Insurgentes and Hyatt Regency San Luis Potosí in Mexico, as well as the Hyatt Regency Salt Lake City in Utah. Hyatt Regency Irvine in California is scheduled to open in August, and Hyatt Regency Niagara Falls in Canada will open within the coming years. 

Elsewhere, Hyatt Regencies, including Hyatt Regency Coralville in Iowa, Hyatt Regency Hill Country in Texas and Hyatt Regency San Francisco, are undergoing extensive renovations and design refreshes.

Hyatt did not respond to Hotel Dive’s further questions about expansion plans