While Hyatt Hotels Corp. is facing outsized international headwinds, the hotel company's first-quarter results exceeded expectations, driving Hyatt to slightly raise its full-year outlook.
On the company's earnings call, CEO and President Mark Hoplamazian kicked off his remarks acknowledging the "recent events in the Middle East," and said the situation is being closely monitored. He also mentioned the "isolated security concerns in Mexico" in February, noting that Hyatt's properties and guests were unaffected by a raid by the Mexican Army Special Forces to target drug cartel violence.
Although Hyatt's hotels did not face any major safety events during the unrest in Mexico, it did impact performance for the company. However, Hoplamazian said Hyatt was able to redirect some of its Mexico bookings to its Dominican Republic properties. Additionally in Jamaica, Hyatt still has hotel closures due to damage from Hurricane Melissa.
"In terms of gross fees, Mexico represents about 10% of our total gross fees," Hoplamazian said on the call. "The Dominican Republic represents about 6% and Jamaica represents about 1% so as we talk about these markets, I think it's important for everyone to understand the relative size."
Joan Bottarini, Hyatt's chief financial officer, said the company reported a 4% decline of revenue per available room in the Middle East due to the war in Iran.
Despite navigating "a very dynamic quarter," Hoplamazian said overall RevPAR performance exceeded expectations and was driven by its luxury brands. RevPAR in the United States was also better than expected, he added, and Bottarini reported 3.3% year-over-year RevPAR growth in the U.S.
"We are increasingly positive about the outlook for the United States. Forward booking trends in the United States are strong for the balance of 2026 with group pace for full-service hotels up in the mid-single digits for the remainder of the year," Bottarini said. "We continue to hear positive feedback from our group of corporate customers about their intent to travel this year, and we expect strong leisure trends to continue."
Another region Hyatt is particularly excited about is China. Bottarini said the country saw a 12% year-over-year increase in RevPAR in the first quarter. Meanwhile, Europe saw a 7.5% increase in RevPAR, thanks in part to the Olympics in Italy.
"We believe the improved performance in the United States supports increasing our full-year system wide RevPAR growth outlook to between 2% to 4%," Bottarini said.
She added that RevPAR in the U.S. specifically is expected to grow between 2% and 3%. On its last earnings call in February, Hyatt projected full-year 2026 RevPAR growth to be between 1% and 3%.
As for his expectations for the rest of the year, Hoplamazian said he sees promising activity for group business, which Hyatt has steadily grown over the past nine months. And, he added, luxury remains strong.
"If there's any sign of weakness in terms of the high-end customer, we have not seen it. Of course, I think we are playing the game differently and also really focused on the clients that we serve and how we go to market. And I think our relative performance is a reflection of that."
By the numbers
Hyatt's comparable system-wide hotels RevPAR increased 5.4%, compared to the first quarter of 2025, according to the company's earnings release. For its all-inclusive resorts, comparable system-wide net package RevPAR increased 7.4% compared to the first quarter of 2025.
Hyatt's net income was $38 million and adjusted net income was $61 million.
"As of March 31 we had total liquidity of approximately $2.2 billion including $1.5 billion of capacity on our revolving credit facility," Bottarini said. "In the first quarter, we repurchased $135 million of Class A common stock, returning approximately $149 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. We ended the quarter with $543 million remaining under our share repurchase authorization."
For pipeline growth, Hyatt reportedly secured franchise contracts for the addition of 151,000 rooms in the quarter, an increase of 9.4% compared to the first quarter of 2025.
As of press time, Hyatt's stock was trading at $168.74 a share, up 49.75% year over year. The NYSE composite was up 20.46% for the same period.