CHICAGO—Home is where the heart is, a credo that is clearly evident in Hyatt Hotels Corporation’s recently revealed extended-stay Hyatt House design.
The brand concept will feature a more neighborhood-like environment, creating a home-away-from-home for long-term guests, said Gary Dollens, global head of franchise and select brands for Hyatt.
“We’re trying to create our own neighborhood for the building. From the arrival experience to guest markets, guests will say ‘This is my neighborhood,’” he said.
The first key feature Hyatt’s team focused on was building more engaging social spaces in the building’s interior, including a Great Lounge with signature chairs, an oversized social sectional, a glass-enclosed game room and a transitional breakfast bar/evening bar area.
“Although people tend to be on a device, they still want to be with other people. When we looked at our social spaces, there was a real opportunity to change that,” Dollens said.
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| The new extended-stay hotel design outside concept’s patio contains an integrated grill for the use of all hotel guests. |
The old apartment-style extended-stay hotel where guests checked in and then spent 40% of their one-to-five night stay isolated from other guests is a thing of the past at Hyatt House.
“Look at a home today,” Dollens explained. “The kitchen and family room are one large area. You engage in that space whether it’s for breakfast, or you have people over and that’s where you end up socializing. We’ve designed the spaces so it migrates where you eat breakfast in the morning, and in the evening, it’s the bar area.
“Traditionally in the segment, there’s an evening social, but it’s dubbed the evening anti-social,” Dollens said. The event, usually hosted from 5 p.m. t o 7 p.m. with beer, wine and some appetizers is being transformed at Hyatt House. “We changed that to small plates, full bar, beer and wine—it’s a much improved product and a much greater variety.”
The exterior of Hyatt House includes a backyard concept with an integrated grill in the outdoor patio, Dollens said.
While the lobby remains a multi-purpose area, individual rooms will feel more like “an apartment-style suite design,” with an open concept that allows the guest to be immersed in all their surroundings. Guests can choose from a studio or one-and-two bedroom suites.
This design aesthetic comes from the changing way people live.
Dollens explained, “Where I do my work with my laptop, I’m sitting at my kitchen counter. I can watch televisions at the same time. I’m engaged in that space, and we wanted to recreate that at the same time.”
Because, “when you’re traveling, you’re not at home,” Dollens said Hyatt House mollifies that by having cutaway cabinets that are stocked with wine glasses and coffee cups that help guests immediately “feel comfortable to look in ever cabinet.” The mud room is another added contemporary element that guests really want.
“We’re trying to create a space, where the guests look at it and go, ‘I’d love to have this in my own home,’” Dollens said.
Developing a brand identity
By targeting the upper end of the extended-stay segment, Hyatt’s team is hoping to be the best in the segment, “and drive our business based upon that,” Dollens said, adding: “We want to be the target, be the one out there in front.”
Dollens and his team worked with New York City-based architecture and interior design firm Stonehill & Taylor to create a communal and contemporary design concept. But Dollens said he also analyzed the way Hyatt has been operating for the last 30 years.
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| Hyatt House guest suites are an open concept that makes living more enjoyable. |
“In the last five years, from a technology standpoint, the way we operate our lives has changed dramatically,” he said. “It became pretty clear there was an opportunity to redefine what the segment is.”
Beginning the work 18 months ago, Dollens said the purchase of Hotel Sierra from LodgeWorks on the West Coast, a portfolio that comprises 16 hotels, provided his team with “the opportunity to create something different” that ultimately reflected where the brand should be.
After doing third-party research, health studies and sessions with Hyatt customers, as well as inviting focus groups to discuss the new concept, Dollens said the Hyatt corporate team was able to easily modify what the brand was going to be by being “on the other side of the glass listening to (the customers).”
“An example was the fitness rooms,” he said, explaining that long-term customers said they wanted a fitness room that resembled a neighborhood club.
“We made the modifications and added additional equipment,” expanding the exercise room and making it different and much larger from what normal hotels offer, Dollens said. “It’s a great example of customer feedback.”
Overall, the feeling and design language is “not edgy but more contemporary and design forward,” he said. “It has a contemporary feel to it, and it’s not an edgy feel. If you’re 25 or 55, you’re comfortable in that segment.”
Capital spending
The redesign comes on the heels of Hyatt’s announcement
to rebrand its 38 Hyatt Summerfield Suites, as well as 16 Hotel Sierra hotels the company recently acquired from LodgeWorks, a Wichita, Kansas-based hotel management company.
Entering into the extended-stay market in 2006 with the purchase of Summerfield Suites, Hyatt now ranks as the 144th largest U.S. extended-stay chain; Marriott International’s Residence Inn, with 597 properties, leads the category, according to data from STR.
The evolution of Hyatt’s extended-stay portfolio comes at a time when the segment has shown positive growth in occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room throughout 2011. According to data by STR, HotelNewsNow.com’s parent company, the extended-stay segment through October saw a year-to-date occupancy increase of 3.5%, a 4.2% increase in ADR to US$78.62 and a 7.8% increase in RevPAR to US$58.17.
The Hyatt House rollout involves a phased-in approach, and Dollens said soft changes will occur immediately; Hyatt Summerfield Suites and Hotel Sierra hotels will complete these changes, including their name changes, by early 2012.
In terms of operational changes, there will be an individual evaluation of each hotel in the pipeline. Upgrades and remodeling will take place over the course of 2012.
Total expenses, however, are still unknown.
Hyatt owns about half of the Hyatt House portfolio, Dollens said, so the company was mindful of the total cost of conversion.
“We eat what we cook. We have a large capital expenditure, so we can be thoughtful of design and thoughtful in terms of all it offers,” he said.
However, Dollens noted that, “When we do brand standard changes, it is the owner of the buildings” who are responsible for renovation costs.
But the time and effort will be worth it, he said.
“If you got a product that customer’s desire, you’ll derive desire and occupancy,” Dollen said. “You start out with having something others want, and those will drive and improve RevPAR.”