Late last year, Hyatt Hotels Corp. named Tamara Lohan global brand leader for luxury, encompassing Park Hyatt, Alila, Miraval and The Unbound Collection by Hyatt. Lohan is also co-founder of the boutique hotel and luxury travel platform Mr & Mrs Smith, which Hyatt acquired in 2023 for approximately $66 million. Hotels editor Christina Jelski recently spoke with Lohan about luxury trends, upcoming brand openings and how Mr & Mrs Smith being further integrated into the Hyatt ecosystem.
Tamara Lohan
Q: What's your initial assessment of Hyatt's luxury portfolio?
A: I've been on this amazing world tour for the past six months to get to know the properties. I think that because Hyatt has lived in this kind of centralized model, its luxury brands needed love, care and attention and storytelling that a centralized team just wasn't able to give them. So we're on a mission to tell those stories, working internally to make sure all our properties are the best they can possibly be, and elevate all of our luxury brands.
Q: What elements are part of that elevation process?
A: I think we're moving away from personalization to what we're terming "anticipatory service." Really trying to read the room and understand what somebody needs before they can even voice it or complain or make a request. And I think AI is going to help us to understand the guest even better.
Q: What's happening on the food and beverage front, particularly amid the current GLP-1 era?
A: With more people coming who are using GLP-1s, I think in luxury we do need to think about it; if people are going to eat slightly less, every bite needs to be delicious and worth someone's time. If I'm only going to drink one glass of wine, it needs to be excellent. So there is this push toward being very thoughtful and intentional about what we put on people's plates, what we put on the menu and really caring thoughtfully for guests, because they might not be as hungry as other people but not making people feel bad about that. That's where sharing can be really good, because then people can take the amounts that they want and need.
Q: You mentioned Park Hyatt, but what about Alila?
A: We'll come out with a big awareness campaign for that brand next year. We're going through a little brand refresh, tone of voice, that kind of thing. And there are lots of hotels in the pipeline. It is a much smaller brand, and it did start in Asia, so it's more of a recognized brand in that part of the world. But there are plans to do more in Europe and the Americas, and I think that will help.
Q: What else is happening in terms of openings?
A: Within a period of 12 months we'll have opened three Park Hyatts in Mexico. At the beginning of the year, we opened Cabo del Sol, and in December we're opening two new Park Hyatts, one in the Riviera Maya and one in Mexico City. Next year, we'll convert a hotel to Park Hyatt in Vancouver, and very early next year, we'll be opening a Park Hyatt in Phu Quoc in Vietnam.
Q: Can advisors work across the Mr & Mrs Smith and Hyatt portfolios, and are there plans to integrate that further with Prive, Hyatt's luxury travel advisory program?
A: They can obviously book them on the World of Hyatt platform, but we've got plans to maybe talk about Prive and how advisors could do it through Prive. We're not ready to announce anything yet. Prive is a program that we have with the best of the best hotels, and we're speaking to the best travel advisors and making sure that the travel advisors can trust us and trust us with their clients, trust us with their selection of hotels and just make things better there for them.
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This interview was edited for length and clarity.