LOS ANGELES — With nearly 20 years working for Hyatt, Jason Ballard's new mission as senior vice president and global brand leader – Essentials is filling in the gaps for the company's portfolio of hotels to create value for both new owners and new guests.
Appointed to the role in October, he oversees several of Hyatt's hotel brands, including Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Caption by Hyatt, Hyatt Studios, UrCove, Unscripted by Hyatt and Hyatt Select.
"Hyatt, historically started as a full-service [hotel] company — and predominantly managed. In 2007, we moved in earnest with Hyatt Place into the select-service space," Ballard said in a video interview at the recent Americas Lodging Investment Summit. "But we've probably been a little bit later than our competitors to get into upper midscale. And now that we have an upper-midscale offering, we now can service interstate markets, suburban markets and places where our guests travel for their stay."
Hyatt surveyed its guests and researched why Hyatt credit card holders were booking non-Hyatt hotel stays, Ballard said. The reason was there wasn't a Hyatt hotel in the area or in the right chain scale to book. This is Hyatt's biggest opportunity to expand, he added.
"This space is our growth vehicle," he said. "There's something like 500 markets in the U.S. where we could use a presence."
And the primary way Hyatt is growing its Essentials hotel division is through conversions. New-build hotels, in addition to being more of an investment, are taking longer.
"We see the ownership community really moving into the conversion space more than anything else," Ballard said. "There's a lower cost of capital to get to a quality that could meet our Hyatt standards, and a faster opportunity to join the Hyatt system as well. ... So for a reduced investment, you can now get into the Hyatt ecosystem a little bit quicker."
And, as a hospitality professional, Ballard says it all comes back to the guest and what this larger network of hotels is going to provide them — especially the new loyalty members that'll be brought into World of Hyatt.
"What I love about the Essentials is we're going to have this base now where folks can have their first experience with Hyatt, and then they can start their career journeys with Hyatt, and have all these places to stay," he said. "You get to earn all these points in our Essentials hotels and spend them on lovely vacations at the beach."
For more from Hyatt's Jason Ballard, watch the video or listen to the podcast embedded above.