ANDAZ TOKYO TO OPEN IN 2014 AS FIRST ANDAZ HOTEL IN JAPAN

Tokyo launch unites Hyatt’s boutique-style brand with world-renowned Japanese hospitality

CHICAGO,  2012-12-14 — /travelprnews.com/ — Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) and Mori Building Co., Ltd. announced today that their affiliates have signed an agreement to launch Andaz Tokyo, the first Andaz hotel in Japan. When it opens in the summer of 2014, Andaz Tokyo will join the brand’s growing portfolio of boutique-style hotels in gateway cities and resort destinations around the globe. Strengthening the Andaz presence in Asia, the new hotel will unite the brand’s creative community focus and refined yet casual atmosphere with the seamless and personalized service for which Japan is known.

Andaz Tokyo will be the fourth Hyatt-branded hotel to open in Tokyo and the ninth to be established in Japan. Hyatt and Mori Building affiliates have collaborated on two other five-star properties in Asia: Park Hyatt Shanghai, which opened in September 2008, and Grand Hyatt Tokyo, which will mark its tenth anniversary in April 2013. With the Japanese launch of the Andaz brand in Toranomon, the birthplace of Mori Building, the two companies affirm their shared commitment to bringing gracious, unscripted service to an urban revitalization project that is focused on providing inventive programs and venues for inspired interactions between residents and visitors alike.

“Currently, nine Andaz hotels are in operation in four countries, with others continually being added to our development pipeline,” said Larry Tchou, executive vice president, group president – Asia Pacific, Hyatt Hotels Corporation. “True to its destination, Andaz Tokyo will convey the well-tailored, refined sensibility of Japan, as well as the vibrant, internationally eclectic spirit of its capital city.”

“With its central location between the high-rise district of Shiodome and the Akasaka and Roppongi areas where many multinational corporations are located, Toranomon is a vital hub for Tokyo’s further development as a global business center,” said Kazuhiko Yamamoto, vice president of urban development for Mori Building. “Andaz Tokyo will both heighten Toranomon’s appeal and serve the needs of international firms here, promising the area’s fast growth as a gateway destination.”

A New, Pedestrian-Friendly Commercial District

Andaz Tokyo will occupy eight floors, including the top six, of a 52-story tower in a multi-use complex now under construction in Toranomon, a business and embassy district located in the capital’s prestigious Minato Ward and one of several areas in the city now designated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government as a Special Zone for Asian Headquarters. At a height more than 2,600 square feet, the wing-shaped high-rise, designed by Nihon Sekkei, Inc. and constructed by Mori Building, will be the second tallest in the city, housing offices, residences, shops, and conference venues, in addition to Andaz Tokyo with its spa, dynamic restaurant facilities, and 164 guestrooms and suites. The core landmark of a major urban development plan spearheaded by the metropolitan government and stretching between Shinbashi and Toranomon, the tower will boast as its crowning feature Andaz Tokyo’s open-air bar and dynamic event space with outdoor seating on the penthouse level, literally bringing alfresco dining and entertainment to new heights in the city.

A tree-lined boulevard, on the scale of Omotesando’s promenade, will run along the tower’s east-west axis. The building is equidistant to two of the city’s major parks: Hibiya Koen and Shiba Koen, which are both just eight minutes on foot to the north and south respectively. The gardens of Hamarikyu-teien to the east and the Imperial Palace to the north are each a 20-minute walk. For its commercial tenants, the tower’s strategic location in Minato Ward, with easy access to embassies, seaports, and Haneda Airport, is expected to draw the regional headquarters of multinationals and research organizations across a wide number of industries, including the medical, chemical, electronics, precision instruments, finance, securities, and IT fields.

Vibrant Venues

At its pinnacle on the 52nd floor, Andaz Tokyo will feature two facilities that will introduce rooftop flair to the city’s dining scene: an open-air bar and the Andaz Studio, a flexible event and meeting space with terrace seating. Also a first for a high-rise Tokyo hotel, there will be a 65 square foot indoor infinity pool. Located on the building’s 37th floor, the infinity pool, spa, and fitness center will be accessible by tower residents, as well as overnight guests of the hotel. Andaz Tokyo’s 164 guestrooms, which will include 16 suites, will be situated on the 47th through 50th floors, affording views of the Tokyo skyline in all directions. Standard rooms will average 167 square feet, among the most spacious in Tokyo. The largest suite will be 721 square feet in size.

Check-in will be conducted seamlessly upon arrival via handheld tablet devices carried by welcoming hosts. Those guests who prefer a leisurely check-in will be ushered to the Andaz Lounge, a convivial space located on the 51st floor, for complimentary coffee or a glass of wine. An all-day dining restaurant, also located on this floor, will offer fresh, seasonal, and organic fare reflecting the brand’s market-to-table philosophy. The 52nd floor will house a chapel in addition to the open-air bar and Andaz Studio, where a show kitchen will offer made-to-order menus for weddings and special gatherings of all kinds. A pastry shop and café will be situated at street level.

Relevant Designs

Overseeing the interior design of Andaz Tokyo are Tony Chi of the New York-based Tony Chi & Associates, and Shinichiro Ogata, of Simplicity Co., Ltd. in Tokyo’s Meguro Ward. Chi was born in Taiwan and raised on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and he is a graduate of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. He has an impressive portfolio of sophisticated global hospitality design projects, including Andaz 5th Avenue in New York and Park Hyatt Shanghai. Ogata, a Nagasaki native, is known for his elegant architectural, interior, and product designs—such as the Higashiya and Higashi-yama teahouses and sweet shops in Tokyo and the ‘SSS’ line of upscale furniture and tableware in porcelain, ceramic, iron, lacquer, pewter, glass, bronze, and wood—all of which celebrate traditional Japanese industrial arts. Together the two designers will draw on Japan’s rich body of aesthetic arts to create spaces that, in keeping with the Andaz mission, stimulate the creative senses of guests in refreshing ways.

Community Focus

The Andaz Salon brand program is comprised of interactive, on-property, and virtual events conceived to support and nurture each hotel’s community of emerging talent. Andaz Tokyo will collaborate with local artists, musicians, designers, and other cultural influencers to deliver events and programs on themes unique to its location in central Tokyo. Andaz Tokyo’s distinctive spaces will be used flexibly to stage creative Andaz Salon events, from talks to exhibitions to live performances. These events can also be experienced through the Andaz Salon website at www.andazsalon.com, where unique content from the brand’s Cultural Insiders is shared.

These creative relationships with Cultural Insiders are intended to spark new connections, provoke ideas, and empower people to shape their surroundings. In addition, Andaz Tokyo will join its sister properties in their support of women in war-torn countries through a collaboration with Women for Women International, an organization dedicated to providing female survivors of war, civil strife, and other conflicts with tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency.

Unprecedented Civil Engineering

In an engineering first for the city, an underground tunnel will place a portion of the Loop Road No. 2 arterial road beneath the more than four acre Toranomon site, thereby freeing up the tower’s immediate environs for people-friendly plazas, community pathways, and open vistas. The Shinbashi-Toranomon section of Loop Road No. 2 is scheduled to open to traffic in spring 2014; it is slated to connect with the Wangan-sen Bayshore Route and other traffic networks serving Haneda Airport and the seaport area in 2017.

Loop Road No. 2 (Kanjo Dainigosen)

While the nearly six mile section of Loop Road No. 2 (Kanjo Dainigosen) stretching from Shinbashi to Kanda Sakumacho was pegged for development in 1946, the portion between Shinbashi and Toranomon has until now remained unrealized. With the implementation of new municipal provisions in 1989 allowing the construction of highways and buildings within the same vertical space, plans for the arterial road, its tunnel, and an above-ground redevelopment project were able to proceed in concert. Construction work is now progressing, with the new Shinbashi-Toranomon section of Loop Road No. 2 slated to open in spring 2014.

About Mori Building Co., Ltd.

Since its founding in 1959, Mori Building, Co. Ltd (www.mori.co.jp) has reshaped the look and feel of major Asian urban centers with the completion of a number of high-profile mixed-use complexes, among them Ark Hills and Roppongi Hills in Tokyo in 1986 and 2003 respectively and the Shanghai World Financial Center in 2008. The firm’s visionary re-imagining of the “Vertical Garden City” concept for high-density areas unites work, residential, entertainment, commercial, educational, and cultural functions in systematic ways, enhancing infrastructure efficiency and enabling modern cities to meet the urgent challenges of today.

About Andaz

Global in scale while local in perspective, Hyatt’s Andaz brand delivers an innovative hospitality experience and attentive, uncomplicated service designed to accommodate guests’ personal preferences. Hotels in this collection reflect the unique cultural scene and spirit of the surrounding neighborhood through their Andaz Salon program and are dedicated to creating natural and vibrant living spaces where travelers can indulge in their own personal sense of comfort and style. Nine Andaz hotels are currently open: Andaz 5th Avenue and Andaz Wall Street in New York, Andaz San Diego, Andaz West Hollywood, Andaz Napa, and Andaz Savannah; Andaz Liverpool Street in London; Andaz Amsterdam Prinsengracht; and Andaz Shanghai. For more information, please visit www.andaz.com.

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^TM brand names and have locations on six continents. Hyatt Residential Group, Inc., a Hyatt Hotels Corporation subsidiary, develops, operates, markets or licenses Hyatt Residences^TM and Hyatt Residence Club^TM. As of September 30, 2012, the Company’s worldwide portfolio consisted of 496 properties in 45 countries. For more information, please visit www.hyatt.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Forward-Looking Statements in this press release, which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include statements about our plans, strategies, occupancy and ADR trends, market share, the number of properties we expect to open in the future, our expected adjusted SG&A expense, capital expenditures, depreciation and amortization expense and interest expense estimates, financial performance, prospects or future events and involve known and unknown risks that are difficult to predict. As a result, our actual results, performance or achievements may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the use of words such as “may,” “could,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “seek,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “continue,” “likely,” “will,” “would” and variations of these terms and similar expressions, or the negative of these terms or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by us and our management, are inherently uncertain. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, among others, general economic uncertainty in key global markets, the rate and pace of economic recovery following economic downturns; levels of spending in business and leisure segments as well as consumer confidence; declines in occupancy and average daily rate; limited visibility with respect to short and medium-term group bookings; the impact of hotel renovations; our ability to successfully execute and implement our organisational realignment and the costs associated with such organisational realignment; our ability to successfully execute and implement our common stock repurchase programme; loss of key personnel, including as a result of our organisational realignment; hostilities, including future terrorist attacks, or fear of hostilities that affect travel; travel-related accidents; changes in the tastes and preferences of our customers; relationships with associates and labour unions and changes in labour law; the financial condition of, and our relationships with, third-party property owners, franchisees and hospitality venture partners; if our third-party owners, franchisees or development partners are unable to access the capital necessary to fund current operations or implement our plans for growth; risk associated with potential acquisitions and dispositions and the introduction of new brand concepts; changes in the competitive environment in our industry and the markets where we operate; outcomes of legal proceedings; changes in federal, state, local or foreign tax law; foreign exchange rate fluctuations or currency restructurings; general volatility of the capital markets; our ability to access the capital markets; and other risks discussed in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K, which filings are available from the SEC. We caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which are made as of the date of this press release. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any of these forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, new information or future events, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting forward-looking statements, except to the extent required by applicable laws. If we update one or more forward-looking statements, no inference should be drawn that we will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward-looking statements.

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CONTACT :

Yoko Nakamatsu
+81-3-3222-4088
Yoko.nakamatsu@hyatt.com

Jamie Rothfeld
+1 312 780 6070
jamie.rothfeld@hyatt.com

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