CHICAGO (May 3, 2013) – Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE:H) today announced that Hyatt Regency O’Hare is the recipient of the company’s first “CEO’s Award for Innovation.” Given by Hyatt President and CEO Mark Hoplamazian, the global award recognizes a hotel or team that has fostered innovation and positively evolved the guest experience.
Hyatt Regency O’Hare is receiving this award for the recent launch of its airport mobile check-in, which delivers a unique service to guests arriving at O’Hare International Airport who board the hotel shuttle bus. Driven by observations of guest arrival behavior, as well as requests for a more seamless check-in, the hotel deployed mobile check-in agents to the airport shuttle center to personally greet guests, check them in via iPad®, and create their key cards before getting to the hotel, allowing for a welcoming and efficient arrival experience.
Hyatt Regency O’Hare’s airport mobile check-in is a part of Hyatt’s new approach to listening, which goes well beyond typical market research by incorporating tactics aimed at understanding the deeper emotional needs of guests, creating ideas that target those needs, and quickly prototyping and testing the ideas. Hyatt Regency O’Hare serves as one of Hyatt’s “lab” hotels and is designated to incubate, test, and rollout innovative ideas like the mobile check-in process.
“Hyatt Regency O’Hare has redefined the guest arrival experience, resulting in tangible and significant increases in guest satisfaction scores,” said Hoplamazian. “Innovation is critical to how we bring our brands to life, surprise and delight guests, build loyalty, and create value for Hyatt. This award is an important way to acknowledge and celebrate teams who innovate and deliver results, and we are proud to start this tradition by honoring Hyatt Regency O’Hare.”
The airport mobile check-in process, which launched in early 2012, has already seen measurable success. Hyatt Regency O’Hare’s net promoter scores, which measure guest satisfaction, have increased month over month, and the hotel is now ranked among the top five in guest satisfaction scores within the Hyatt portfolio worldwide. Additionally, this new concept helped earn Hyatt the number 25 spot on the “500 most innovative uses of business technology” in 2012 by InformationWeek.
“I am so proud of our associates who have embraced this process and committed themselves to improving our guests’ arrival experience through new, innovative thinking,” said David Jacobs, general manager of Hyatt Regency O’Hare. “It is an honor to receive the CEO’s Award for Innovation for something we believe in so strongly, and we only look to grow from here. This year, we’ll focus on ways to drastically increase the number of people we can serve as they travel to our hotel from the airport since we know our check-in technology is a true brand differentiator for Hyatt.”
Future recipients of the CEO’s Award for Innovation will meet criteria centered on value creation, radical collaboration with a variety of organizational levels represented, application of innovative thinking, brand strategy alignment, and speed to market of a new concept.
For more information on Hyatt’s new approach to listening, visit www.hyatt.com/experience.
About Hyatt Hotels Corporation
Hyatt Hotels Corporation, headquartered in Chicago, is a leading global hospitality company with a proud heritage of making guests feel more than welcome. Thousands of members of the Hyatt family strive to make a difference in the lives of the guests they encounter every day by providing authentic hospitality. The Company's subsidiaries manage, franchise, own and develop hotels and resorts under the Hyatt®, Park Hyatt®, Andaz®, Grand Hyatt®, Hyatt Regency®, Hyatt Place® and Hyatt House® brand names and have locations on six continents. Hyatt Residential Group, Inc., a Hyatt Hotels Corporation subsidiary, develops, operates, markets or licenses Hyatt ResidencesTM and Hyatt Residence ClubTM. As of March 31, 2013, the Company's worldwide portfolio consisted of 508 properties in 46 countries. For more information, please visit www.hyatt.com.
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Jamie Rothfeld
Hyatt Hotels & Resorts
+1 312 780 6070
jamie.rothfeld@hyatt.com