Hyatt Hotels Corp. President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian said 2025 was the ninth consecutive year his company led the hotel industry in rooms growth, and he fully expects that to be an even decade at the end of 2026.
During Hyatt's fourth quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call, Hoplamazian said net rooms growth was 7.3% in 2025 excluding the company's acquisitions, up from 6.7% in 2024. Hyatt executives expect rooms growth to come in between 6% and 7% for 2026.
"We feel really good about the momentum that we've seen," he said. "We had a really significant signing quarter in the fourth quarter. We have tremendous momentum in the newly launched brands."
The company launched its select-service Hyatt Select brand one year ago, and Hoplamazian said, "we went from having nine hotels to 32 in the pipeline. ... Some are prototypical new construction, but most of them are conversions. We have 27 under design, and many of those will be conversions."
Hyatt launched the upper-midscale extended-stay brand Hyatt Studios in 2023 and the company now has 10 hotels under construction. "We also have 31under design, and so they will advance and get shovels in the ground soon," Hoplamazian said.
Launched last May, Hyatt's upscale collection brand Unscripted "went from nothing to having eight open and eight in the pipeline right now," he said.
Key openings in the quarter included the first Park Hyatt in Mexico, the Park Hyatt Cabo del Sol, and the Andaz One Bangkok, which is part of the One Bangkok mixed-use development.
In addition to the traditional one-off development activity, Hyatt has focused on portfolio deals, particularly in countries and markets where the company lacks a presence and can scale quickly via acquisition. Hoplamazian pointed to Hyatt's acquisition of Wink Hotels in Vietnam, which quickly added six properties to its Unscripted by Hyatt collection brand, as an example of those types of deals.
But he noted Hyatt won't do those types of deals just to quickly ramp up scale.
"We are very focused on making sure that they are real, meaning we are not happy to just affiliate," Hoplamazian said. "We want to have a deeper relationship and make sure that we are under contract in a way that is providing the owners the best value proposition, which is really to be plugged into our systems and under a franchise arrangement or a management arrangement."
He added there are "several" such deals in the works.
Over the past decade there's only been a single year where Hyatt did not lead the hotel industry in revenue per available room growth, Hoplamazian said. He added this underlines the overall strength of Hyatt's performance even during a period where most attention went to its acquisition activity.
"Yes, we've done a lot of [mergers and acquisitions] over this period of time ... But that significant value growth through inorganic activity, don't let that distract you from the fact that the core business is extremely strong," he said. "Our cash-flow conversions are going up. Our returns to shareholders will continue to go up, and our ability to de-lever and open up more capacity in the future or re-lever and return more to shareholders is before us. So stay tuned."
Earnings performance
For the fourth quarter, Hyatt saw 4% year-over-year revenue per available room growth with 2.9% growth for full-year 2025, according to its earnings release.
Hyatt recorded adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $292 million in the fourth quarter, up 14.6% compared to the same period in 2024. Full-year adjusted EBITDA came in at roughly $1.16 billion, a 5.8% increase.
Chief Financial Officer Joan Bottarini said Hyatt's performance came in better than expected for both December and January.
Hyatt also closed the sale of three properties — the Alua Atlántico Golf Resort, the Alua Tenerife and the AluaSoul Orotava Valley — for $140 million while signing each to long-term management deals.
As of press time, Hyatt's stock was trading at $170.51 a share, up 5.2% year over year. The NYSE composite was up 16.1% for the same period.