Hyatt is buying London-based luxury hotel booking site Mr & Mrs Smith for £53 million.
The platform, launched in 2003, offers direct booking access to more than 1,500 boutique and luxury properties around the world.
“We are excited by this planned acquisition and to explore bringing guests and World of Hyatt members even more global luxury offerings across hundreds of geographies – including over 20 countries where there are currently no Hyatt hotels such as Fiji, Croatia, Iceland and Anguilla,” said Mark Vondrasek, chief commercial officer for Hyatt.
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“Founders Tamara and James Lohan alongside their impressive team have built the ultimate global direct booking collection of truly unique stay experiences, including rooms located in treehouses, within caves and underwater suites. Importantly, we see a lot of synergy between our collective ethos of care, and we look forward to working together to bring our shared focus to new, memorable stay experiences for guests and World of Hyatt members – and introduce new guests to Hyatt hotels around the world.”
Hyatt said the acquisition strengthens its distribution capabilities, especially across Europe, by connecting it to additional hotel owners and more than 1 million members of Mr & Mrs Smith’s loyalty program.
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter this year. Hyatt said some time after that it will unveil direct booking access to properties within the Mr & Mrs Smith platform through Hyatt.com, the World of Hyatt app and its other distribution channels.
“I am really excited that we have found such a dynamic and globally trusted brand as Hyatt to take Mr & Mrs Smith into our next chapter. We have long admired and respected Hyatt and are confident that there is no one better placed to build on what we have achieved and take our company to new heights,” said Tamara Lohan, co-founder and CEO of Mr & Mrs Smith.
“Our vision has always been for Mr & Mrs Smith to be the world’s definitive travel club for hotel lovers. Thanks to Hyatt, that vision has become much closer to reality. With Hyatt’s support, Mr & Mrs Smith will be able to offer our community of members, hoteliers and partners so much more.”
More than 100 employees of Mr & Mrs Smith will transition to Hyatt, including Lohan, who will serve as CEO of the brand, and James Lohan, co-founder, who will serve as chief creative officer.