With the pandemic pushing down hotel operating metrics and profitability to historically low levels, 2020 was an exceptionally difficult year to get construction financing for hotel developers.

But speaking during his company's first quarter 2021 earnings call, Hyatt Hotels Corp. President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian said he's seeing that lending freeze thaw somewhat as more regional banks grow comfortable with lending for hotel projects.

"We're at a point where we're starting to see the very first signs of banks, mostly regional not necessarily money center banks, starting to make proposals that are getting closer to a debt stack that could make sense for a developer," he said.

He noted if that trend continues it would have an obvious positive impact on his company's pipeline, which remained flat for the first quarter despite the opening of roughly 15,000 rooms over the last three quarters.

"We have a significant number of deals that are ... signed that we don't count in our pipeline by virtue of the fact that we don't see the financing in place to actually start the construction," he said. "I think that will evolve and thaw over the course of the summer, but we're still not quite there yet."

Hoplamazian said that lack of debt has brought hotel development to a grinding halt, particularly in the select-service segment, despite plenty of equity sitting on the sidelines. As that becomes more available, Hyatt has been trying to find "innovative financing alternatives" to keep the flow of deals moving.

"Sometimes that's been in the form of mezzanine debt or preferred capital," he said. "We've provided preferred capital over the last two years to some partners of ours, developers who have developed Hyatt Place or Hyatt House hotels. We're evaluating how we could do something that's got more" impact.

He said this is something the company will be "paying a lot of attention to" as a recovery ramps up.

"It has a lot more to do with debt capital stack than it does equity. The equity is actually available," Hoplamazian said. "It's a matter of getting the debt stack in place that makes sense for a developer to put a shovel in the ground."

Hyatt officials are eager to get back to transacting real estate, with their continued target of selling off a net of $1.5 billion in owned assets by March 2022. Hoplamazian said the company is in the late stages of negotiating the sale of one of the company's owned assets while sorting through offers for a second.

At the same time, Hoplamazian broached the subject of possible acquisition targets for the company, although any physical assets would have to be offset by additional sales to reach the $1.5 billion target. On the brand front, he noted the Two Roads Hospitality acquisition in 2018 helped his company expand its share of leisure travel after years of being heavily reliant on business transient and group demand, and any brand-related acquisition would have to fill a similar white space. He said one potential target would be something to expand Hyatt's resort footprint.

"So as we look into potential opportunities that would be meaningful to us, we're looking to ensure that we've got very compelling resort alternatives for our guests, not just because of the benefits within the World of Hyatt [loyalty platform], but because it's been shown, especially in the customer base that we serve, which is a relatively high-end customer base, and that they are continuously demanding and looking to travel to at an elevated rate," he said.

During the first quarter of 2021, Hyatt reported a net loss of $304 million and a year-over-year decrease in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 123.3%.

Revenue per available room for the quarter was down 48.9% compared to 2020. However, broken down by month, March saw a 54% increase compared to the same month in 2020.

The company saw net rooms growth of 6.5% in the quarter with the pipeline of management and franchise contracts remaining at roughly 100,000 rooms.

As of press time, Hyatt's stock was trading at $80.01, up 7.8% year to date. The NYSE Composite was up 12.6% for the same period.