Hyatt Hotels Corporation’s Hyatt Place brand is set to make a significant mark on the Canadian hospitality landscape in coming years. The pipeline for the brand currently sits at 17 properties — up two since May, when the company announced plans to triple its Canadian presence by the end of 2022 with a pipeline of more than 20 hotels.
As Scott Richer, vice-president, Real Estate and Development, Canada at Hyatt Hotels
Corporation, explains, the breakdown of Hyatt’s Canadian pipeline is “pretty indicative of our global growth as well. We’re seeing excellent pickup on many of our platforms, but Hyatt Place continues to be the front-runner in terms of new openings.”
And according to the Hyatt Place Q4 2018 fact sheet, the brand accounts for more of Hyatt’s hotel footprint than any other brand.
The Hyatt Place properties under development will join the brand’s two existing locations in Alberta — the 161-room Hyatt Place Edmonton-West and 127-room Hyatt Place Calgary Airport, which opened in January of 2017 and 2019 respectively.
“They both opened in competitive markets and have both proven themselves in a short period of time,” says Richer.
Richer points to the brand’s boutique-inspired design and scalability as key factors drawing developers to this upscale focused-service brand. Among the brand’s defining features are guestroom design that creates distinct zones for sleep, work and relaxation, as well as 24/7 food-and-beverage offerings.
“[Hyatt Place] combines style with innovation and 24/7 conveniences, which creates an easy experience to navigate for today’s traveller,” he explains. “This seems to be a brand that appeals to that traveller, regardless of their reason for travel.”
“It’s the [Hyatt] brand that’s most widely applicable to the markets of opportunity in Canada,” Richer adds, pointing to locations set to open from Moncton, N.B. to Prince George, B.C. “If you look at our distribution map, it’s almost indicative of the population.”
When asked why this was the time for Hyatt and Hyatt Place to expand within Canada, Richer cites a few factors. Aside from Canada being a natural place for U.S.-based chains to expand once established, “Canada continues to be an economically dynamic place…it’s been a good growth cycle for the past five years and that aligned with the evolution of our brand platform — these are young brands, in the relative spectrum.”
“We see great pickup on our other brands,” he adds, pointing to Hyatt House as a prime example. In fact, of the 17 Hyatt Place locations announced, four are dual-branded Hyatt Place/Hyatt House concepts, including locations in Ottawa, Edmonton and Vaughan and Mississauga, Ont.
“We’ve taken an innovative approach to our dual branding, whereby we really do combine the hotels, so it effectively becomes one larger hotel with different room-type offerings,” Richer notes. “It makes a lot of sense to developers when they’re looking at markets where there’s compounded depth.”
Ultimately, the company is focused on growing its footprint thoughtfully, targeting areas where there’s demand from its guests. “That’s what’s driven our growth strategy here — it hasn’t been a shotgun approach.”
