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Hyatt Hotels Corp.'s newly launched Hyatt Studios brand offers the company a chance to grow its pipeline of hotels and its World of Hyatt loyalty platform by adding scale in the upper-midscale extended-stay segment, reports Hotel News Now's Sean McCracken from an exclusive interview with Hyatt President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian.

Hoplamazian said Hyatt Studios already has signed letters of interest for more than 100 projects. Most will be in markets that don't have existing Hyatt hotels. The first Hyatt Studios is expected to begin construction this year and open in 2024.

"There are two primary constituent groups for this: There are owners and World of Hyatt members," he said. "The hotel owners sat around the table and designed this brand with us. With respect to the World of Hyatt members, we've learned a lot of Hyatt customers, loyalty members, when they're staying outside of the Hyatt system, almost two-thirds of them are doing so because there's not a Hyatt within a 5-mile radius [of where they want to be]. ... So we recognize that our core customer base that exists today would stay within network if they had an option."

Australia was anticipating a wave of Chinese tourists as soon as China reopened its border in January, but so far the demand has only been described as a trickle due to high costs, shortage of flights and an exodus of Mandarin-speaking tour guides, Reuters reports.

Flights from mainland China to Australia during February were just one-fifth of pre-pandemic levels for that month. The number of short-term visitors from China was also one-fifth of what it was in February 2019, at 40,430.

"We're hearing that [Chinese nationals] can't wait to get out and travel after not being able to travel for so long, and Australia has always been a place that has high aspiration to travel, but our capacity to service has been reduced," Peter Shelley, managing director at the Australian Tourism Export Council, told the news outlet.

Foreign investors have been responsible for 47% of the $3.7 billion invested in Japanese hotel deals in the past 12 months, which is the highest share since 2014, Bloomberg reports, citing data from research firm MSCI Real Assets.

Benjamin Chow, MSCI’s Asia head of real assets research, told the news outlet that low rates, the weak yen and market stability have made Japanese real estate attractive to overseas buyers. The increased interest in hotels stands out because it is still one of the more niche real estate types in Japan. Foreign investors have typically focused on residential or retail properties.

More company executives believe addressing mental health with their employees is essential for hiring and retention. As a result, companies are increasingly offering extra mental-health days and on-site respite rooms for associates to destress, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mental health is the workplace crisis of our time,” Lynee Luque, NerdWallet’s chief people officer, told the newspaper. “We don’t feel that taking care of mental health is something that should just be lumped in with PTO or sick days.”

Bharat Patel will be the new chairman of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association's board of directors at the conclusion of 2023, according to a news release.

Patel became an active member of AAHOA in 2008 and has served as an ambassador for several years.

“I am honored to serve America’s hotel owners as the newest AAHOA Chairman,” Patel said in the news release. “I look forward to honoring the past and creating a bolder future by working with AAHOA’s nearly 20,000 members to ensure we reestablish strong partnerships with our state associations, grow the AAHOA PAC to new record levels, and make advocacy front and center to AAHOA’s mission and vision.”

Additionally, Rahul Patel of Bradenton, Florida, and proprietor of Wisdom Group, is the new AAHOA secretary. Ten members have also been elected to be on the board of directors.

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