CHICAGO (April 12, 2012) – Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) proudly announced today the winners of the inaugural Hyatt Thrive Leadership Awards recognizing full service, managed hotels, resorts, and field offices for their outstanding commitment in 2011 to initiatives aligned with Hyatt’s global corporate responsibility platform Hyatt Thrive. To be considered, applicants must have demonstrated leadership in environmental sustainability and/or community engagement.

A total of six awards will be distributed every year to the hotels and resorts that demonstrate exemplary leadership in these two areas. More than 70 nominations were submitted this year, and winners were selected by a cross functional committee comprised of representatives from Hyatt leadership and its operational teams. Each nomination was evaluated based on the following criteria: a coherent, focused approach that yields high impact; significant employee engagement; strategic programming tied to the company’s mission, values and goals, and Hyatt Thrive platform; innovative approach that yields substantial environmental benefits; and, a sustained, long-term investment in the community. This year’s winners include:

• Excellence in Environmental Sustainability - Hyatt Regency Atlanta and a collaborative team from Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency hotels in Dubai
• Excellence in Community Engagement - Grand Hyatt Jakarta and Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok
• Excellence in Doing It All - Grand Hyatt Sao Paulo and Hyatt Regency Hill Country

“We are honored and humbled to recognize the valuable contributions made by the winners of our inaugural Hyatt Thrive Leadership Awards,” said Brigitta Witt, vice president of corporate responsibility for Hyatt Hotels & Resorts. “Actively contributing to the environmental and social well-being of our communities is integral to sustaining our business; and the recipients of this award exemplify Hyatt’s longstanding commitment to contribute to the prosperity, health and advancement of the many communities around the world that we serve.”

About The Winners

Environmental Sustainability: Hyatt Regency Atlanta

Despite the limitations of a 45-year-old building in the midst of an urban landscape, Hyatt Regency Atlanta has turned obstacles into opportunity achieving a 35 percent reduction in energy and a 36 percent reduction in water with numerous initiatives established to achieve these results. The hotel has been tracking its environmental efforts since 1991, and today, its Green Team leads the robust recycling and composting program, which resulted in the diversion over 1,000 tons of material waste last year.

Environmental Sustainability: Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency hotels in Dubai

Capitalizing on their close proximity to one another, these three hotels demonstrate the power of a collaborative approach to reducing environmental impact. To reduce the amount of freshwater consumption in an area of increased water scarcity, the hotels recover condensate and treat effluent for use in cooling towers and other equipment. At Park Hyatt Dubai, this effluent treatment saves up to 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day and more than one million gallons per year. At Grand Hyatt Dubai, home to one of the largest solar panel installations in the Middle East, the hotel saves more than 100,000 gallons of diesel per year and effectively reduces its associated carbon emissions.

Community Engagement: Grand Hyatt Jakarta

After receiving a US $20,000 Hyatt Community Grant, Grand Hyatt Jakarta grew the opportunity into an employee engagement project and provided significant economic and health improvements for a rural village living below the poverty line. For the last two years, 323 associates partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build 20 homes for 20 families in need.

Community Engagement: Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok

Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok was recognized for its passionate and long-standing commitment to the economic and social development of the local communities that surround the hotel. For the last 17 years, the hotel has partnered with UNICEF to train more than 80 students from rural neighborhoods. The hotel’s sponsorship includes English language courses, accommodations, uniforms, meals, and daily allowances for the students. After spending five months in this immersive hospitality training program, many students are offered full time positions at the hotel.

Most recently, the hotel was poised to respond when severe floods devastated Bangkok and the surrounding community. In response, Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok provided accommodations to 233 hotel associates and their families. In addition to donating food, drinking water, clothes and other necessities to the Thai Red Cross, the team helped prepare meals for flood victims and participated in a city-wide cleanup effort after the water had receded. Since December, the hotel has engaged guests in their relief efforts, raising nearly US $20,000 to restore a local school that sustained severe damage.

Doing It All: Grand Hyatt Sao Paulo

With a comprehensive approach to address environmental and social issues, Grand Hyatt Sao Paulo associates are hands-on with dramatic impact. The hotel Green Team’s most recent projects include reusing condensed steam from boilers to heat hotel swimming pools, collecting rainwater for landscaping, and launching a carbon offset program for meetings. Through partnerships with two organizations – The Youth Career Initiative (YCI) and Formare – this hotel recruits underprivileged youth from surrounding slums, brings them into the hotel and teaches them a wide range of skills that include grooming, personal finance, civics, personal responsibility and hospitality training. Today, more than ten percent of the hotel’s work force is comprised of young adults that would likely not have had any other opportunities to advance in their lives.

Doing It All: Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort and Spa

Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort and Spa demonstrates a comprehensive, results-based commitment to reducing its environmental impact, and leads a strong community outreach program that demonstrates both breadth and depth, yielding economic and social impacts in their surrounding neighborhoods. Working with organizations such as United Way, Hands On Education, Habitat for Humanity, and the local food bank, Hyatt Regency Hill Country’s programs include a 19-year partnership with a local school and an on-site hospitality training program for adults with disabilities that results in many full time positions at the hotel. Environmentally, the hotel has a clear action plan in place and has several impactful initiatives such as the upgrade of an irrigation control system that reduced energy and water consumption by more than 10 percent and ozone treatment in laundry, which is saving more than 20 percent in water and sewer costs, 30 percent in natural gas, and is reducing chemical use by over 20 percent.

About Hyatt Thrive

Hyatt’s global corporate responsibility program, Hyatt Thrive, is designed to help make the communities in which Hyatt operates places that associates are proud to work, guests want to visit, neighbors want to live and hotel owners want to invest. The program reflects Hyatt’s belief that no one better understands a community’s most pressing issues – and their solutions – than those who live and work there. Hyatt Thrive harnesses the power of more than 90,000 Hyatt associates at over 480 properties around the world, to focus on positive local efforts that create a significant global impact.

Hyatt Thrive focuses on four key pillars that Hyatt believes are essential to a thriving community:

• Environmental Sustainability
• Economic Development & Investment
• Education & Personal Advancement
• Health & Wellness

For more information about Hyatt Thrive, please visit www.hyattthrive.com. For videos that demonstrate Hyatt hotels’ work within their communities, please visit the Hyatt Thrive playlist on the official Hyatt YouTube channel at http://bit.ly/IfyBzM.

About Hyatt Community Grants

Funding for the Hyatt Community Grants program is provided by the Hyatt Hotels Foundation, a donor advised fund created in conjunction with the National Philanthropic Trust. Since the program’s inception in 2008, Hyatt hotels have awarded over USD$1,054,000 to nonprofit organizations in 84 communities and 30 countries around the world. The philanthropic program empowers Hyatt associates to guide charitable giving and encourages hotels around the world to identify and nominate local nonprofits for funding consideration through the Hyatt Hotels Foundation. The program builds on the company’s belief that no one better understands a community’s most pressing issues – and their solutions – that those individuals who live and work there.

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 brands. Hyatt House is changing its brand identity from Hyatt Summerfield Suites® and Hotel Sierra in 2012. Hyatt Residential Group, Inc., a Hyatt Hotels Corporation subsidiary, develops, operates, markets or licenses Hyatt Residences^TM and Hyatt Vacation Club®, which is changing its name to Hyatt Residence Club^TM. As of December 31, 2011, the Company's worldwide portfolio consisted of 483 properties in 45 countries. For more information, please visit www.hyatt.com.

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