Hyatt Acquires Standard Hotels: World Of Hyatt Integration Revealed

In late 2024, Hyatt acquired Standard International, the parent company of The Standard and Bunkhouse Hotel brands. There’s now an update, as Hyatt has revealed plans to integrate these brands into the World of Hyatt portfolio. Let’s go over all the details, starting with the basics of this acquisition.

Hyatt acquires Standard International, multiple brands

In October 2024, Hyatt acquired Standard International, parent company of Standard and Bunkhouse Hotel brands. Hyatt paid a base purchase price of $150 million, with up to an additional $185 million over time, as more properties are added to the portfolio.

This is an asset-light purchase, as this includes management, franchise, and licensing contracts, for 22 open hotels, with approximately 2,000 rooms. Hyatt anticipates the stabilized annual fees associated with the base purchase price to be around $17 million, and sees them going up to $30 million, as more hotels are added to the portfolio.

For those not familiar with Standard Hotels, it’s a “lifestyle” hotel brand known for nightlife and partying. I wouldn’t say it’s a luxury brand, but rather it’s more a “hip” brand. Standard Hotels has properties in places like Ibiza, London, the Maldives, Melbourne, Miami, New York, and more. Then Bunkhouse Hotels has a portfolio that includes properties like Hotel Saint Cecilia in Austin and Hotel San Cristóbal in Baja California.

Here’s how Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian described this deal, at the time:

“The development community knows an industry game-changer when they see it, and the enthusiasm for bringing together the ethos of The Standard and Bunkhouse brands and the power of Hyatt’s network and distribution system is palpable. Developers love this combination as much as we do.”

Historically, Hyatt has of course had the issue of not having as big of a footprint as competitors like Hilton, IHG, and Marriott. The company has tried to improve that situation by acquiring other hotel groups. This has included the purchase of Two Roads Hospitality (Alila, Thompson, and more), Apple Leisure Group (Secrets, Dreams, Zoëtry, and more), Mr & Mrs Smith (essentially a luxury travel agency), etc.

World of Hyatt adds Standard & Bunkhouse properties

Effective immediately, Hyatt is starting to integrate Standard properties in the World of Hyatt program, allowing members to earn and redeem points, and take advantage of elite perks. Let’s go over the timeline with which properties are being added, and which World of Hyatt category they’ll be:

• As of May 7, 2025, The Standard, Ibiza, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 6 property
• As of May 14, 2025, The Standard, London, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 6 property
• As of May 14, 2025, The Standard, High Line, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 6 property
• As of May 14, 2025, The Standard, East Village, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 6 property
• As of May 21, 2025, The Standard, Bangkok, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 2 property
• As of May 21, 2025, The Standard, Bangkok Riverfront, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 2 property
• As of May 21, 2025, The StandardX, Melbourne, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 2 property
• As of May 21, 2025, The Standard, Hua Hin, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 3 property
• As of May 21, 2025, The Standard, Maldives, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 6 property
• As of May 21, 2025, The Standard, Singapore, joins World of Hyatt, as a Category 5 property

On top of that:

• The Standard, Pattaya, is opening soon, and will be a World of Hyatt Category 3 property
• The Standard, Brussels, is opening soon, and will be a World of Hyatt Category 4 property

The timeline for Bunkhouse Hotels joining World of Hyatt hasn’t yet been announced, but that should change soon.

As far as elite perks and points earning goes, these will all be pretty standard World of Hyatt properties:

• Members will earn 5x World of Hyatt points per eligible dollar spent, and will qualify for elite bonuses
• Members will earn 4x World of Hyatt points per eligible dollar spent on a co-branded Hyatt Card
• Stays will earn elite qualifying nights, so will count toward Milestone Rewards, the Brand Explorer promotion, and more

Hyatt forms new dedicated lifestyle group

While this shouldn’t impact guests directly, it’s worth noting that with this deal, Hyatt has also formed a new dedicated lifestyle group, with headquarters in New York City, and additional offices in Austin and Bangkok.

It’s being led by Standard International’s Executive Chairman Amar Lalvani, who used to lead global development of W Hotels, before partnering with André Balazs on Standard Hotels.

This new group is supposed to leverage Hyatt’s operational and loyalty infrastructure while assuming distinct leadership across key functions, including experience creation, design, marketing, programming, public relations, restaurants, nightlife, and entertainment. It will be made up of staff from both Standard International and Hyatt. Here’s how Lalvani described this, back when the deal closed:

“The lifestyle segment isn’t for the faint of heart, it takes creativity and commitment. But if you get it right, you reap the benefits of outsized guest loyalty and outsized developer returns. The beauty of this combination is that Hyatt respects the creativity and freedom required to deliver the experiences we do, and we respect the value of Hyatt’s storied history, global infrastructure and best-in-class commercial services.” 

I can’t help but find this to be an interesting development, given that Hyatt is based in Chicago, so decentralizing many functions is an unusual move. I’m not sure if Hyatt just wanted to retain some talent that didn’t want to move to Chicago, if Hyatt thinks it’s cooler to have offices for its lifestyle brands in New York, or what.

This is a positive development, I guess?

I’m a fan of Hyatt, as much as one can be a fan of a for-profit, publicly traded travel brand, without seeming like a company spokesperson. I think Hyatt tries harder than other major hotel groups, and the World of Hyatt program differentiates the hotel group from competitors.

I appreciate the focus that Hyatt leadership has on growing the brand, to become more competitive in terms of global footprint. At the same time, this seems to be happening primarily in the form of acquiring small portfolios of properties. I’m conflicted about that.

On the one hand, I generally think that more options for earning and redeeming points, and taking advantage of elite perks, are a good thing. Furthermore, I also recognize that organic growth can only happen so quickly, so often these kinds of strategic investments are the best way to fuel growth fast. That’s especially true at a time like this, when interest rates are high, and developers don’t necessarily have the appetite for a lot of newly built properties.

On the other hand, I can’t help but feel like Hyatt has had an unbelievable amount of brand inflation at this point, and it makes it hard for even engaged customers to keep track of the various brands. Hyatt is now up to 30(ish) hotel brands.

I mean, heck, Hyatt has 10 different all-inclusive brands. Can someone explain the difference between them all to me? Because I can barely name a handful of them, and don’t even ask me to tell you the differences between them.

And here’s the other thing. Hyatt is definitely focused on “luxury” expansion, rather than limited service expansion. The Wall Street Journal even recently did a story about “Why Hyatt Is Choosing Luxury Over Affordability.”

But if you ask me, Hyatt is only sort of focused on luxury. Sure, most of Hyatt’s recent brand acquisitions have been for upscale and upper upscale properties. But we’re seeing very little growth with true luxury brands, and frankly even those luxury properties that are opening, aren’t exactly “flagship” properties.

Yes, I’m happy there’s a new Park Hyatt London and Park Hyatt Marrakech, but both of these seem like “better than nothing” additions, rather than true flagship properties for the brand, based on the location alone. I doubt it will happen (since it would be very costly), but I’d absolutely love to see Hyatt acquire one of the major, non-publicly traded luxury hotel brands out there. It’s an area where Hilton is excelling, as the current Waldorf Astoria pipeline is impressive.

Bottom line

Hyatt purchased Standard Hotels in October 2024. We’re now seeing Standard properties start to join the World of Hyatt program, with a phased approach. The good news is that the integration seems to be quite good, with full points earning and redemption opportunities, as well as elite perks.

Hyatt has been growing quite a bit lately by acquiring new brands. While more World of Hyatt properties is a good thing, in an ideal world we’d see a bit more growth to existing portfolios, rather than just small new brands added.

What do you make of Hyatt acquiring Standard Hotels, and the World of Hyatt integration?