Hyatt President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian is featured on the cover of the December issue of Hotels’ Investment Outlook, one of the hospitality industry’s top publications. The article credits Mark and his executive team with fostering an “indie spirit that brings a definite edge to business as usual.”

The story features an interview with Mark Hoplamazian and Steve Haggerty, Hyatt’s global head of real estate and development. In the article, Steve highlights Hyatt’s robust branding and development progress in 2011:

• The launch of Hyatt House, our new extended-stay brand
  
• The creation of a new joint venture with Noble Investment Group
  
• The acquisition of LodgeWorks’ portfolio
  

Additionally, Mark and Steve discuss Hyatt’s continued focus on driving growth and development in key gateway markets where our guests are increasingly traveling. Today, we have more than 150 properties under development across our seven brands – 70% of the properties are located outside of North America in emerging markets like China, India and the Middle East. Today, we have hotels in 45 countries, and in the next few years, we will expand our portfolio to 54 countries!

The Hotels’ Investment Outlook piece also describes Hyatt’s unique position for growth as one of the only major hospitality brands that owns, manages and franchises its properties. “[The] center of gravity is shifting toward management contracts and franchising,” Steve said. But unlike other hospitality companies, Hyatt is committed to only signing deals that make complete sense. “No one says we have to add ‘X’ number of hotels each year. No one goes around the building asking what happened if we don’t get one hotel or another. There’s no deal regret here.”

Mark sums it up: “Ubiquitous-ness has never been our aim. We’re not calculating how we can get as big as Marriott or Hilton or IHG. Our goal of focusing on each brand to make it the preferred brand in its segment hasn’t changed. Our approach has been accelerating our progress towards that aim.”