Hyatt President & CEO: Loyalty Enrollments are up 37%

During the Q2 2019 earnings conference call, Mark Hoplamazian, president and CEO for Hyatt, discussed the high performing nature of the company's World of Hyatt loyalty program.

"The momentum of World of Hyatt is very strong in part due to the compelling partnerships we have initiated with small luxury hotels, American Airlines and Lindblad Expeditions," he said. "World of Hyatt enrollments are up 37% over last year in the second quarter, driven by large membership gains coming from on-property enrollments as well as digital enrollments through hyatt.com, and the World of Hyatt mobile app."

In particular he called out elite customers whose scores are up significantly. He also mentioned how the company's global room night penetration has increased approximately 460 basis points to more than 41% during the first half of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018.

"We believe engagement of World of Hyatt members fueled our transient demand and contributed to our market share gains during the second quarter," Hoplamazian added.

What primarily fueled loyalty membership growth? New enrollments, specifically on-property enrollments.

"As much as we talk about – and we're thrilled with – the partnerships that we developed and created and launched under World of Hyatt with American Airlines and small luxury hotels and now Lindblad Expeditions, the majority of the activity on the enrollment side has been on property and then digitally through hyatt.com and through our app," Hoplamazian explained.

While the company is certainly seeing membership come in by virtue of its affiliations with other companies, Hoplamazian stated that these memberships were not the primary driver for its membership increase.

"I think that's a great sign of health," he noted. "We're frankly tracking ahead of what we thought was possible in terms of moving the needle on penetration, and it remains a really important focus – area of focus for us as we go forward."