Hyatt Is Buying Mr & Mrs Smith
Pinch me, I want to make sure this isn't a fever dream. My favorite hotel brand is looking to add close to 1,800 new properties, many of which are in Europe?! Can this be true? That is exactly what is happening since Hyatt is buying Mr & Mrs Smith. The name might sound familiar since the brand has a loose tie in with IHG who allows members to book at a select few of their properties. Not anymore, because Hyatt is looking to buy the whole bag for a reported £53 million (about $66 million USD).
Details On The Deal
Only $66 million for 1,800 hotels, that doesn't make sense does it? That is because Mr & Mrs Smith is a boutique booking brand. They work with independently owned, boutique properties and bring them together to book under their brand. Power in numbers and marketing and all of that jazz. I imagine this will be very similar to the set up Hyatt has with the SLH brand which they partnered with not too long ago. This should unlock a new brand explorer option too, after we recently heard about the upcoming Hyatt Studios doing the same thing. That would be a total of 28 brands under the Hyatt umbrella, just 2 shy of a chance at 6 free nights.
This purchase will give Hyatt access to the 1 million users of the Mr & Mrs Smith brand and get them partnerships with 1,788 hotels listed on the Mr & Mrs Smith site. There are 256 villas listed in addition to the 1,788 hotels. The really amazing thing is the Mr & Mrs Smith site has 892 hotels listed in Europe, an area where Hyatt really lags behind the competition. That is a huge boost to the portfolio.
They also list 185 hotels in the US, mostly in larger cities. On a completely selfish note there are two hotels listed downtown Detroit, where Hyatt has zero hotels currently. I am very excited about that, especially since they happen to be two of the swankiest options in the city too. Welcome aboard The Siren and Shinola Hotel. Pinch me again!
Hyatt Is Buying Mr & Mrs Smith: ToP Thoughts
What remains to be seen is which hotels make the move over and then what the category costs will be. Some of the SLH properties get pretty pricey and I have to imagine Hyatt has something similar in mind here. We should know somewhat soon though since Hyatt is looking to close the deal the second quarter of this year. Let me do the quick match here, that is only two months away! One can only hope everything goes smoothly and the deal closes on time. It may take some time to onboard everything to Hyatt's system after that though.
Whatever you were planning on doing today is probably kicked to the curb in favor of scouring the Mr & Mrs Smith site for options for upcoming trips. Hopefully you had your work already wrapped up!
HT: Skift
