CHICAGO – Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced Together by Hyatt, a new suite of events offerings designed to meet planners where they are on their journey to return to events. Building on Hyatt’s expertise in delivering meetings and events, Together by Hyatt advances care for meeting planners by simplifying and streamlining event planning and execution with attendee safety and wellbeing as top priorities.
“Throughout COVID-19, we have been intensely focused on listening to our customers, and while we’ve heard that there are many challenges, more importantly, we’ve heard that planners are excited about the opportunities to come back together during recovery and beyond,” said Jack Horne, global head of sales and revenue for Hyatt. “We’re here to help planners explore the possibilities and reach their attendees in creative and impactful ways. As a new suite of meetings and events offerings, Together by Hyatt is designed to support planners at every step of the way as we reimagine what events can look like and collaborate to bring their vision to life.”
Rooted in Hyatt’s purpose to care for people so they can be their best, Together by Hyatt prioritizes four pillars that are essential to all events:
Care and Safety
Hyatt’s Global Care & Cleanliness Commitment, which focuses on enhanced rigorous cleanliness and safety protocols and includes GBAC STAR Facility Accreditation and GBAC-Trained Technicians from the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC), serves as the foundation for Together by Hyatt. With safety and wellbeing as top priorities, Hyatt has taken additional steps in an effort to provide more peace of mind:
- Reimagined meeting spaces: From socially distant room setups to signage for attendees to care stations with personal protective equipment, Hyatt has reimagined all touchpoints of the event experience.
- GBAC STAR Facility Accreditation: With the requirement for all Hyatt hotels globally to secure GBAC STAR Facility Accreditation and have at least one dedicated hygiene and wellbeing leader who is a GBAC-Trained Technician, planners can feel confident that Hyatt is following some of the industry’s most rigorous cleanliness standards and protocols.
- COVID-19 testing and verification: Hyatt has worked with COVID-19 testing and verification providers to enable planners to easily explore COVID-19 testing for attendees as part of their event protocol.
Care and Technology
As the driver for hybrid event capabilities, seamless and streamlined technology platforms are critically important to the overall experience. Hyatt is working with Swapcard in some Hyatt hotels in an effort to offer meeting planners an exclusive opportunity to use its end-to-end virtual and hybrid events platform with hybrid meetings at hotels. Hyatt and Swapcard are working together to offer the Together by Hyatt Technology Platform powered by Swapcard, which will provide planners with access to a bespoke platform that unifies on-site and virtual experiences and uses Swapcard’s artificial intelligence to enhance remote attendees’ experience. This collaboration will also allow planners to tap into Swapcard’s expertise and best practices for hybrid events.
In addition to the Together by Hyatt Technology Platform powered by Swapcard and in-house audiovisual capabilities, planners can take advantage of Hyatt’s proprietary meeting tools. From virtual hotel tours that enable planners to tour a hotel from the comfort of their home or office to making requests directly to the hotel team in real time through the Event Concierge app to group bill, which organizes all event charges into one bill, Hyatt’s robust set of event tools provides planners with more choice and flexibility at their fingertips.
Care and a Community of Experts
In a recent survey of Hyatt customers, almost half of planners expressed difficulty creating a synchronized and compelling hybrid experience. To address complexities of hybrid events and further care for planners as they navigate the new normal, Together by Hyatt offers planners the opportunity to tap into new resources and dedicated expertise surrounding hybrid events:
- Hybrid event experts: Hyatt has introduced a new team of hybrid event experts to help planners seamlessly integrate and execute virtual components of events. With this specialized skill set spanning events and technology, new hybrid event experts will be available to help planners explore hybrid capabilities and ensure their events are shared experiences between in-person and virtual attendees.
- Support squad: Alongside the on-the-ground Hyatt team to oversee on-site event execution, a dedicated support squad will assist with all virtual components. From addressing real time technology questions from attendees to assisting speakers with setup, the specially trained support squad will provide additional peace of mind for planners throughout event execution.
- Certifications for planners: To support its most loyal customers, Hyatt is providing the opportunity for planners to be sponsored to secure training from the Global Biorisk Advisory Council, allowing them to approach event planning with the same training as Hyatt’s hygiene and wellbeing leaders. Additionally, Hyatt is teaming up with the Virtual Events Institute, an organization of hybrid event experts who serve the community of event professionals globally, to offer loyal planners a training course with certification to deepen their knowledge of hybrid events.
- Resource guides: As planners begin to ideate on what their next event could look and feel like, new resource guides will be available to share the possibilities at Hyatt hotels and provide inspiration.
Care and Wellbeing
COVID-19 has fundamentally shifted the importance of wellbeing, making it top-of-mind for many. With wellbeing at the core of its purpose of care, Hyatt is addressing this increased focus on wellbeing in new ways through Together by Hyatt:
- Miraval experiences: A new series of guided experiences featuring wellbeing experts at Hyatt’s Miraval resorts will be available for planners to integrate into event agendas for meetings at all Hyatt hotels, connecting on-site and virtual attendees alike. With content that is purposely designed to serve as a break in the agenda, attendees will be able to enjoy a variety of wellbeing moments – from intention-setting activities to guided stretching exercises – throughout their event.
- Headspace: Curated content from Headspace, a global leader in mindfulness and meditation, will be offered through Together by Hyatt, providing planners with a unique opportunity to care for attendees’ mental wellbeing. From meditations, breathing exercises, and focus music, planners will be able to make their meetings more mindful with Headspace.
- Food and beverage offerings: With a strong reputation in food and beverage, Hyatt is evolving its culinary offerings in creative ways to bring food and beverage experiences to attendees – whether on-site or remote. With services like Personal Preference that allow attendees to choose their meal once seated to providing recipe cards and shopping lists for remote attendees, food and beverage will continue to be a top contributor to attendee experience.
“While events will look and feel different, we believe there is pent-up demand to create, connect, and collaborate, whether that’s in-person or a hybrid format, and once again experience the joy of what it means to be together,” said Steve Enselein, senior vice president of events for Hyatt. “Guided by our purpose of care, every aspect of Together by Hyatt is intended to provide a seamless experience for planners so they can focus on delivering exceptional events for attendees. We’ve taken strategic steps to bring safety, technology, support, and wellbeing to the forefront of our offerings, and we are here to co-create the path forward, which we believe lays the foundation for a new era of events that will be more inclusive than ever before.”
