Mark S. Hoplamazian, president & CEO, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, on Hyatt’s purpose of care. BY SHAFQUAT ALI
With the big focus on technology, do you feel hotels have forgotten the human touch? Is Hyatt doing something special to keep the human touch alive?
Mark S Hoplamazian: For Hyatt, it’s quite the opposite. Technology takes care of the basics, so our colleagues can focus on doing what they do best: getting to know our guests and caring for them in personal ways. In fact, technology helps us scale care. For example, when a guest visits us in Dubai and we learn she loves grapefruit juice in the morning, our colleagues capture that, so when the same guest visits us in Delhi we can anticipate this for when she arrives there. Technology helps us to care for guests better.
Is the new purpose of Hyatt activated consistently across the globe? Was there a pattern followed?
Caring for people so they can be their best is not something that is new to Hyatt; it’s been in our DNA since we first opened more than 50 years ago. We have simply put it front and centre again. It guides everything we do — as a company and as individual colleagues. A few months ago, we held an unprecedented gathering of Hyatt’s leaders from around the world. There, our leaders shared with one another best practices around embedding purpose into every guest experience, every partnership deal, and every colleague interaction. Purpose is the responsibility of each one of our leaders, and we trust them to do this with their colleagues in the way that best fits them.
What was the vision behind the statement — “We are in the business of caring for people so they can be their best?”
To define our purpose, we looked for an answer to the question: Why do you exist as a company? As I talked to my colleagues across the company and across geographies, what I heard consistently is that Hyatt has always been a family, and the word that people consistently used was ‘care.’ The answer was clear: At Hyatt, we exist to care for people so they can be their best. It’s been at the root of why our colleagues join Hyatt and why they remain with the Hyatt family, and it is also what we have brought to our guests for more than 50 years.
Why was there a need to realign the purpose of the company to become purpose driven and brand led?
The world is moving at an accelerated pace, and we’re seeing two things changing in customer behaviour: people seek experiences more than just great products, and great brands are more than a product or service, they are a relationship. Our opportunity is to use our purpose — caring for people so they can be their best — to steer all of our actions so that we really understand our guests, and deliver distinct, trusted experiences — human experiences — across each of the Hyatt brands. And, the more we understand our guests, the more we can care for them before, during and after their stay with us.
What do you think about the phenomenal initiative of eight monthly offs at Grand Hyatt Mumbai? Are there any other such distinctive initiatives you would like to share?
I love the phenomenal initiative of eight monthly offs at Grand Hyatt Mumbai! The best thing about caring for people is that it is so personal. That means we need to rely on our colleagues to use their judgment and care for their people — their guests, their colleagues and their communities — in ways they know is best.
Here is another example. While at a hotel in the Chicago area, I spoke with a housekeeper who told me that the housekeeping schedule made it so that she couldn’t help her daughter in the mornings by watching her grandchild. A new mobile-based scheduling system now allows housekeepers to design the schedule themselves. We are expanding this so that more and more housekeepers can work out a schedule with their colleagues that allows them to make their daily schedule work so that they can be their best.
Is there any special mention you would like to make with regards to the distinct and trusted brand experiences post the realignment of the brand’s purpose to become more care centric?
We strive for irrational loyalty with our guests. We know they trust the Hyatt name to deliver an exceptional experience, no matter where they stay. Each of our brands brings our purpose to life in a different way that is relevant to their guests and travel occasions. For example, the Andaz brand (which will be coming to Delhi next year) is designed for creatively minded guests. The brand experience is designed to bring the local community in to the hotel, so travellers are immediately connected to the neighborhood and local artists.
Does the new purpose reflect primarily on employee related initiatives or does it also incorporate guests and other stakeholders of the brand?
Our purpose applies to everything we do. That includes recruiting, training and rewarding our colleagues. It also includes designing, operating, and delivering experiences for our guests based on their wants and needs. And it includes returning value to our owners and investors. We believe that the natural result of fulfilling our purpose is to be the most preferred brand.
How will Hyatt purpose differentiate your brand from the others globally and especially in an emotionally driven price-sensitive Indian scenario?
Research shows that companies with a clear purpose outperform their peers. The most valuable brands, the ones that make true connections with their customers, are delivering clear experiences beyond a single point of contact. Using our purpose of caring for people as our guide, we will build these long-term relationships with guests that keep them coming back and engaging with us again and again.
