Welcoming world travelers with industry-leading digital hospitality

Hyatt recognized the opportunity to use the mobile devices that customers always have nearby to increase customer satisfaction, surpass the digital experiences offered by competitors, and explore operational efficiencies at its properties. They knew there had to be a way to build a mobile app that would engage people in new ways and elevate guest satisfaction throughout their stays at Hyatt hotels around the globe. With a thoughtful, contextually relevant approach to app design, Slalom and Hyatt teamed up to make this vision a reality with the new World of Hyatt app.

As a global hospitality company, Hyatt transformed its customer engagement approach in part by investing in the digital experience. With the rollout of the new World of Hyatt iOS app, Hyatt guests gained the ability to manage their entire experience digitally, from start to finish.

With the World of Hyatt app, guests can explore hotel information for more than 700 hotels and resorts, in eight different languages. The app provides details on hotel amenities, maps, photos, weather, activities, dining, rooms, special offers, as well as room rates in 57 different currencies. Guests also have the option to redeem World of Hyatt loyalty points, book points plus cash awards, book award nights, and use corporate and discount codes when booking.

Together, Hyatt and Slalom also set out to push the boundaries from an experience perspective, providing premium comfort and convenience features for guests, while also making sure the app possesses the capacity and resiliency needed to manage the nearly infinite variations available and each hotel and resort. From making dinner reservations to ordering a taxi or Uber, the app is designed to enhance your experience while traveling. The app will even let you know when your room is ready.

Hyatt recognized that travelers don’t like to ask for things and will often go without if it’s not easy to do. With the World of Hyatt app, you can check in, check out, text the concierge, order in-room dining and other services, and even request hospitality items to be delivered to your room. Need some coffee, another pillow, or some extra towels? Forget your toothbrush or razor? Not only can you request these items (and more), the app lets you check delivery status and timing.

For Hyatt, technology is a way to show that it can scale its purpose of care. Digital hospitality means creating a digital experience for Hyatt guests that mirrors the high standard of hospitality Hyatt hotels and resorts provide in person. Everyone involved in the project agreed the app should offer more than bells and whistles – our goal was to care for travelers with the most meaningful and impactful information, services, and features. Slalom and Hyatt collaborated to achieve three goals:

1. Increase engagement and improve guest experience from booking through post-departure.

2. Gain better insight into guest needs and preferences, and use this to continue to enhance their future experiences with Hyatt.

3. Build a flexible, scalable, digital platform that enables industry-leading features.

To accomplish these goals, all guest interactions with Hyatt hotels and resorts would need to be captured and enhanced through experiences within the World of Hyatt app. It was important to Hyatt that the app include relevant content, functionality, and features for guests, as well as providing a full-service experience that anticipated guest needs, simplified and enriched their experience, and allowed them to manage their stay – from booking to arrival and check-in, all the way through check-out and departure.

Building an industry-leading digital hospitality experience also required the integration and enhancement of existing Hyatt systems and web services to offer a wide array of capabilities available at Hyatt hotels and resorts. Hyatt wanted to build an all-new mobile app using native instead of outsourced technology and to integrate it with multiple existing systems for the best, sustainable user experience. Hyatt engaged Slalom to provide expertise in the latest iOS technologies and Agile development methodology, and we worked side-by-side to build new, industry-leading native iOS and Android mobile apps. In the process, Slalom helped set Hyatt up for success in the future by building capabilities within Hyatt’s existing team. We advised on new talent selection and onboarding, and worked with Hyatt’s team to evolve the technology platform, application development and management processes, digital products, experience design, and user experience.

The World of Hyatt app yielded new challenges for information architecture. Our process put great emphasis in reusable models so guests have the most consistent experience possible across activities. Working collaboratively with key stakeholders, Slalom worked with Hyatt’s UX and technology teams to strategize process improvements that could yield the biggest gains. In doing so, we also helped shift how Hyatt’s UX team produced their work. With a focus on creating tangible results for engineering, we moved out of Photoshop into Sketch, which allowed for real-time syncs to InVision and Zeplin, which is like having blueprints for the product, to support iterative redline and prototyping work.

The collaborative development team also used a range of prototyping technologies during Agile sprint cycles to validate new user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX). Axure, Flinto and InVision enabled the team to quickly understand how new interfaces could provide the most value across guest experience. Prototyping new features helped the team confidently prioritize new features, customize design and interactions.

The World of Hyatt app helped bring Hyatt’s customer experience vision to life, including full integration into their enterprise booking, reservation management, and service management systems. Hyatt has achieved a self-sufficient, fully staffed inhouse development team that proceeded to deliver 18 releases in 12 months. Hyatt has since expanded the mobile platform to include keyless entry, Chromecast integration, and numerous World of Hyatt program enhancements for guests and will continue enhancement into the future.

In a short amount of time, the World of Hyatt app has made a significant impact on Hyatt’s business. In the first month after launch, booking revenue from the mobile app set a new monthly high. Booking revenue has steadily increased year-over-year and is up by over 80% since launch!

For World of Hyatt, the future of digital hospitality is bright. World of Hyatt is not only an app, but a means by which Hyatt will further build, engage, serve, and learn about their guests and what they value most. World of Hyatt will lead to greater guest enhancements, more personalization, new ways to interact with customers, and new experiences not before possible.

Hyatt Hotels Corporation, headquartered in Chicago, is a leading global hospitality company with a portfolio of 14 premier brands. As of December 31, 2017, the Company's portfolio included more than 700 properties in more than 50 countries across six continents. The Company's purpose to care for people so they can be their best informs its business decisions and growth strategy and is intended to attract and retain top colleagues, build relationships with guests and create value for shareholders. The Company's subsidiaries develop, own, operate, manage, franchise, license or provide services to hotels, resorts, branded residences, vacation ownership properties, and fitness and spa locations, including under the Park Hyatt®, Miraval®, Grand Hyatt®, Hyatt Regency®, Hyatt®, Andaz®, Hyatt Centric®, The Unbound Collection by Hyatt®, Hyatt Place®, Hyatt House®, Hyatt Ziva™, Hyatt Zilara™, Hyatt Residence Club® and exhale® brand names.