Hyatt Hotels has seen business travel volumes improve quarter-by-quarter but they still remain nearly 20 per cent below pre-Covid levels.
CEO Mark Hoplamazian said during an earnings call that corporate travel bookings in the final quarter of 2022 had shown “incremental improvement from the previous quarter”.
Hyatt added that its Q4 results had been “powered by strong pricing” for leisure and groups, with average rates up by 19 per cent and 15 per cent respectively compared to 2019.
This demand helped to increase revenue per available room (revpar) to $126.33 for the quarter – a 34.8 per cent rise from 2021 and also 2.4 per cent higher than 2019.
Group revenue in Q4 was also up by 1.3 per cent on 2019 – a milestone which Hoplamazian called a “testament to our association and corporate customers prioritising in-person interaction and connection”. Although business travel revenue remained 18 per cent below 2019 levels.
The company made a net profit of $294 million in the fourth quarter, as well as a profit of $455 million for the whole of 2022.
Hyatt CFO Joan Bottarini said the company expects revpar in 2023 to increase in “the range of 10 per cent to 15 per cent compared to 2022”.
She added: “We expect larger growth rates over the first half of the year, in the mid-20 per cent range.”
Hyatt’s pipeline of new hotels also increased to an all-time-high of 117,000 rooms by the end of the year, “bolstered by a robust year of signings that more than offset the impressive pace of openings”. Hyatt’s pipeline total includes 8,000 rooms from the Apple Leisure Group acquisition.