Hyatt CEO Says AI-Chatbot Bookings Are 'Very, Very Small' Today — But Will 'Grow Fast'
Hoplamazian says shoppers arriving through ChatGPT's apps skew younger and spend more on travel, though few finish a booking there.
Hyatt Hotels, the global hotel operator and franchisor behind Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency, says bookings completed through AI chatbot platforms are still tiny, but CEO Mark Hoplamazian expects them to grow quickly. He made the remarks on the company's third-quarter earnings call Thursday, answering a Bank of America analyst.
Tiny today, expected to scale
Hoplamazian said bookings that originate on large-language-model platforms and finish there are "very, very small," so Hyatt is still early in direct agentic booking, where software agents plan and buy trips for users. "It's coming and it will grow fast," he said, pointing to how quickly AI tools have advanced.
He called himself a believer that agentic booking will become a significant part of Hyatt's distribution over the next couple of years.
Younger, bigger-spending visitors
Hyatt will have a presence across Gemini, OpenAI and other platforms, Hoplamazian said, and will stay "relatively agnostic" because each presents hotel products differently. Hyatt was early to appear in apps on ChatGPT's platform, and he said the people arriving that way are younger and spend a lot more on travel. Completed bookings there remain very low, he said.
He said agentic search matters a lot in resorts, luxury and lifestyle hotels and some full-service properties, but not in economy or budget hotels. Those categories make up the bulk of Hyatt's system, he said, which is why the company is working to make its brands sharper, more defined and easier to find.
Keep testing, don't narrow focus
His advice for the industry: "This is not the time to sort of narrow the focus." He called for experimenting and continuous testing and learning, and said Hyatt is doing that.
The comments came on a call where Hyatt said third-quarter system-wide revenue per available room rose 7.2%. It also said World of Hyatt, its loyalty program, has more than 72 million members, up 19% from a year ago. Hyatt raised its full-year system-wide revenue-per-room growth outlook to between 5% and 5.5%. Its market value was $16.3 billion in Thursday morning trading.
Hoplamazian said Hyatt expects agentic booking to expand over the next couple of years, and that it plans to keep testing across AI platforms in the meantime.
Sources
- Hyatt Hotels (H) Q3 Earnings Surpass Estimates — Yahoo Finance
- Hyatt Bets on Luxury, Wins Big and Raises 2026 Growth Outlook — benzinga.com
- Hyatt narrows full-year EBITDA outlook as quarterly earnings beat estimates (H:NYSE) | Seeking Alpha — seekingalpha.com
- Hyatt Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results – Company Announcement - FT.com — Financial Times
- Hyatt Hotels (H) Stock May Be 9% Undervalued As Times Square Expansion Looms — Yahoo Finance
