Hyatt to open 8 new hotels, 1,200 new keys in 2024: Sunjae Sharma

financialexpress.com:

Hotel chain Hyatt India will add eight new hotels in the South West Asian (SWA) region in this year that includes a foraying into Bangladesh with the opening of a new hotel in Dhaka.

Following the new additions, the company’s total number of hotels in the region would increase to 55 by the end of 2024, while the firm is on track to reach 100 in the “near future”, Sunjae Sharma, MD, India & SWA at Hyatt told FE in an interaction.

“We are also moving into a new country, Bangladesh, in the second quarter of this year. We have already crossed 10,000-room-milestone in the region. We are looking at various destinations for the new hotels, which is being timed to coincide with the expected rebound of leisure and business travel in the country and the sub-continent,” he said.

Of the total eight, it had already opened one in Goa under JdV by Hyatt brand and another Haridwar under Hyatt Place brand early this year. The company will open two of its Hyatt Regency brand – in Kasauli and Ghaziabad – and the Hyatt Place brand across three locations (Aurangabad and Dhaka). The firm will expand the portfolio of its Centric brand with openings at Hebbal, Bengaluru and Ballygunge, Kolkata.

“We will continue to grow our presence across the country with a key focus on loyalty, luxury, leisure, lifestyle and wellness. The overarching factors today are about wellness and experiences,” Sharma added.

Hyatt, which operates in upscale, upper upscale and luxury segments, currently has a portfolio of 49 properties – including already opened two in India (Goa and Haridwar), with 47 in India and two in Nepal. It has one of the largest footprints in India, after the Americas and China.

In 2023, Hyatt expanded its footprint in India with the