Hyatt Dominates Both Upscale Categories in Corporate Satisfaction

It looks like Hyatt Hotels did the homework. It came out of the pandemic in BTN’s 2022 Hotel Survey with very high satisfaction scores for brand consistency, safety and security standards—and perhaps most critically for the corporate buyer community—for the quality of its sales team. Not only did the brand score its personal best in that category for both the Upper-Upscale and Upscale tiers, it bested all other brands in both tiers on that element. It’s partnership approach to negotiating was similarly high.

Hyatt VP of global sales Gus Vonderheide told BTN the hotel company has concentrated much effort on building the right sales team with the right division of responsibilities to best serve the corporate market.

“We’re looking at things differently. We’re not just putting people back in the same positions and thinking that’s the way to do business—it’s not,” said Vonderheide, speaking to BTN during the Global Business Travel Association convention in August. “We have created a business development team now in all the cycles of our operations… and we’ve done a lot of looking for new opportunities lately.” On the flip side, he said, Hyatt has done well with keeping existing corporate clients in the fold and brought on a new resource to take care of account analytics and reporting, which frees up the sales team to cultivate relationships as companies ramp up their travel programs. “It’s actually been amazing,” he said.

In both the Upper-Upscale and Upscale categories, meetings have been a critical differentiator for Hyatt as well, according to the survey. Asked via email how Hyatt had evolved its meetings offerings to step up to new in-person and technology options, a spokesperson for the company provided a statement attributed to Vonderheide:

“We worked closely with planners … to understand how to meet their new challenges as well as meet their clients where they were in their return to in-person meetings,” he wrote. “We listened and launched Together by Hyatt,” which Vonderheide described as a suite of resources, capabilities and hybrid solutions for onsite meetings.

Hilton Posts Most Brands in Combined Upscale Categories

Hilton, which scored second place in the Upper-Upscale category and snagged both second and third in Upscale, also leaned into meetings as a strong recovery channel in 2022, said Hilton global category head for full-service brands Gary Steffen.

“We're feeling really good—even though we're still down in groups, meetings and events [from 2019]—what we saw in Q3 as well as in Q2 is corporate meetings are coming back. Those, and probably association meetings, were the missing pieces that we weren't seeing fully recovered. But we're feeling really good about that now, and as we go into 2023, the first half looks very strong."

Hilton, like Hyatt, launched a specialized hybrid-ready solution called EventReady during the pandemic that meeting organizers continue to leverage.

Hilton’s category-leading score in the Upper-Upscale tier, however, was its communication with travel buyers. Steffen noted Hilton’s reticence to reduce its sales staff even during the pandemic.

“We got a tremendous amount of credit from our top buyers and top business transient customers for staying in communication throughout the pandemic. We had some tough decisions to make as a company, but the area we did not reduce much was in business transient and Hilton Worldwide Sales,” he said. “What you're really seeing now is the effect of carrying on that communication and being honest with our customers, especially about some of the continued challenges with staffing and housekeeping and other areas. I think that honesty has been a huge benefit to our corporate customers and our relationships, and we’re seeing the rewards from that.”

With two Upscale brand winners and one Upper-Upscale brand, Hilton took the most berths on the awards podium in the combined upscale categories with Hilton Garden Inn as a prototype, consistent property and DoubleTree among Hilton’s unique conversion brands (Hilton also took second in Upper-Midscale and first in Midscale). Up and down the Hilton brand portfolio, the hotel company has changed how it interacts with guests, providing them with digital check-in and check-out and contactless pay options to cater to how guests prefer to connect with hotel staff and public spaces.

The in-room experience is also undergoing a customization makeover, with Hilton Connected Rooms coming online throughout the Hilton brand portfolio, allowing guests to control lights, temperature, television and sync up in-room media to their own entertainment accounts like Netflix or Disney plus. Rolled out prior to the pandemic in 2019, the initiative continues to gain steam, according to Hilton executives.

Marriott Wins Key Criteria

Buyers can never count Marriott out of their programs. Sky high scores for offering properties in strategic locations for business needs will always keep this iconic brand in play, as will the quality of its data and reporting for the corporate customer.

Scores flagged slightly for its willingness to negotiate with corporate buyers, both on rate and penalties as well as the amenities it will include in the rate. But safety and security as well as the company’s strong brand standards were highlighted by voters.