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Which hotel brand is best, Park Hyatt Vs. Fairmont? Certain cities and resorts house both a Park Hyatt and a Fairmont hotel. The list becomes even longer if you look at cities with both standard Hyatt hotels and Fairmont hotels.
These locations include Doha, Seoul, Los Angeles, Mayakoba (where there is an Andaz), Washington, Hawaii, Boston, Austin, Seattle, Beijing, Chicago, London The Savoy, Geneva, Maldives, Dubai, and the Caribbean. We have also compared Four Seasons Vs. Fairmont in case you are looking into the Ritz-Carlton brand within the Marriott umbrella for your next trip.
Park Hyatt hotels and Fairmont hotels both tend to be very luxurious. Fairmont hotels usually have a Gold club lounge, which guests can pay to access by booking a Gold club room. Park Hyatt hotels don’t. Both typically have excellent facilities, extensive grounds, spas, and often pools.
We have outlined the best Park Hyatt hotels and best Fairmont hotels in case you want to delve further into each hotel brand.
1. Loyalty
Fairmont is part of the Accor loyalty club. If you become a member of this loyalty program, you get a discount at their 3,000-plus hotels, plus you get loyalty points. When booking via our luxury concierge agents, you will get the same loyalty points.
Park Hyatt is part of the World of Hyatt loyalty program, and you can earn and redeem points for free nights in either of these programs.
Whether you are staying at a Fairmont or a Park Hyatt, you will earn useful loyalty points, which can be collected towards free nights.
It’s worth mentioning that these loyalty benefits are nowhere near as good as the benefits you get by booking via luxury travel concierge agents. If you book with our concierge agents, you will also get all your usual World of Hyatt or Accor points during your stay.
Our travel agency partnership with Fairmont and Park Hyatt Hotels means you will also get brilliant free benefits, usually including breakfast for two, prioritized room upgrades (subject to availability), hotel credit, and more if you book with one of our agents. Our deals are almost always better than booking directly on the hotel website for both brands.
In Paris, New York, and London, you also get free club lounge access when you book an InterContinental hotel via our agents, regardless of your loyalty status.
2. Style
Park Hyatt offers a very high-end finish. Of all the major branded hotel chains (excluding Four Seasons), we think Park Hyatt hotels offer the most luxurious setting.
Take the Park Hyatt Zurich pictured above that we reviewed last year. This hotel offers swathes of black marble throughout the double-level foyer. There’s a beautiful lobby lounge with a sophisticated clientele, a large fireplace, and art spattered around. The rooms are large, with lovely bathrooms that open to the bedroom, and everything is immaculate.
The Park Hyatt New York is a new property and is based in one of the skinny new skyscrapers overlooking Central Park. It has a great pool, fantastic large rooms, and oversized bathrooms.
We have also reviewed the Park Hyatt Vienna, which is another stunning refurbished Park Hyatt hotel, this time set in a tasteful conversion of the headquarters of an Austrian Hungarian Monarchy Bank, right in the heart of The Golden Quarter.
This conversion retains many features of the 100-year-old Neo-classical building, including marble staircases polished by the leather of countless bank clerks’ scurrying brogues. Like many Park Hyatt hotels, this hotel is completely unique and is well worth a visit.
Our experience of the Fairmont in Whistler, Fairmont Geneva, and the Fairmont in Monte Carlo is that they are larger hotels with less love and design in their rooms and communal spaces.
Fairmont hotels do not tend to embrace the local area quite so religiously. In Whistler, there are roaring fireplaces in the bar and foyer area of Fairmont Chateau Whistler but the overall hotel, including the rooms, don’t feel desperately charismatic. Once you pull your curtains and block out the mountain views, you could be anywhere.
Other Fairmonts we have visited include the Fairmont Geneva, which has the most glorious view over the lake but is located in a concrete 1980s monstrosity with no historic features. What this hotel has done, which is really special, is that it has converted a large internal courtyard, the square in the center of the hotel, into a stylish pool and beach club complex.
This means that the Fairmont in Geneva offers something completely unique and ideal for families on the shores of Lake Geneva. So while the rooms here are nothing to write home about, and the building is no beauty, the pool complex is a huge attraction to pull guests into staying at this hotel.
Similar is true for the Fairmont Monte-Carlo. At the Fairmont Monte-Carlo, you can’t argue with the fabulous views. Many sea-view rooms hang out over the water, and the sunrises are incredibly uplifting through the floor-to-ceiling balcony windows. The views across the Mediterranean sea make you feel like you’re on a cruise ship.
However, the exterior and interiors of the 1970s building housing Fairmont Monte-Carlo lack character. There is plenty of marble, and the foyer is marble and lengthy, but it has a 1970s feel, almost like it was stuck in a time warp. This is such a shame because the beautiful Casino Square, Hotel De Paris, and Hotel Hermitage, a few minutes walk away, ooze Belle Epoch charm.
3. Location
As a general rule, Park Hyatt and Fairmont hotels are both centrally located in cities. Clearly, the location of the hotel is property-specific. The Park Hyatt Seoul, for example, is located in the business center of the city and not in the tourist center. If you are heading to Seoul, you might also want to consider the Andaz, which we compared with the Park Hyatt Seoul.
In London, a new and fabulous Park Hyatt has opened, but it does not have a very good location and is a tube ride away from the tourist sites, top shopping spots, and the West End.
In Canada, most Fairmonts are based in cities, but the Fairmont Whistler has an ace position at the base of Blackcomb Mountain. The Fairmont in Banff is just outside beautiful Banff village, and the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is right on the shore of this bright blue mountain lake.
The Fairmont Monte-Carlo is around a 1-minute walk from Casino Square (from the health club exit), so it couldn’t be more perfectly located. The Fairmont Geneva is right on the lakefront, right beside Geneva’s famous water fountain (Jet d’Eau) in the lake, so again, it is in a perfect location.
4. Size
Park Hyatt hotels tend to be smaller than Fairmont hotels, which can be very large.
5. Rooms
Rooms at Park Hyatt hotels tend to be larger and more stylish than those at Fairmont hotels. Park Hyatt rooms tend to have a more modern design, whereas Fairmont rooms can be more traditional and generic in decor. The rooms at Park Hyatt, New York, are between 500 and 620 ft². They are large and stunning. We particularly like the views from these rooms.
The Fairmont rooms in Fairmont Chateau Whistler are excellent, recently refurbished, and fairly generic in decor. It doesn’t feel awfully like a mountain retreat in the rooms themselves. The Fairmont Geneva and the Fairmont Monte-Carlo have some slightly dated rooms, and views vary, so make sure you don’t book an internal courtyard view at either hotel, as these rooms can be dingy.
6. Pool & Gym
Whether there is a pool and gym is very property dependent, but as a general rule, Fairmont hotels tend to have more facilities than Park Hyatt hotels partially due to their size. The Fairmont Monte-Carlo has a stylish rooftop pool. The pool at the Fairmont Geneva is incredible, as is the pool at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler. That said, the presence of amazing pools is usually dictated by the location of the hotel rather than the brand.
The Park Hyatt New York has a gorgeous swimming pool, jacuzzi, and sauna on the 25th floor on the opposite side of the building to Central Park. This is a reason to choose this hotel over both the JW Marriott and the nearby Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis.
Park Hyatt St. Kitts Christophe Harbour has a gorgeous pool and beach. The Park Hyatt Vienna has a deliciously warm swimming pool situated under the barrel ceiling of the old bank vault. The Park Hyatts in Paris and Zurich don’t have pools. In London, the new Park Hyatt does have a pool, so each property is very different.
7. Ski
Fairmont has more ski hotels as they have ski hotels all over Canada. We have outlined the best Fairmont ski hotels.
The best Hyatt ski hotels are at Park Hyatt hotels, including Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort which is a gorgeous ski hotel.
8. Club Lounge
Fairmont Gold lounges are excellent. These club lounges can be accessed with high loyalty status. Most Park Hyatt hotels don’t have a club lounge.
9. Family Facilities
Fairmont hotels are usually more family-friendly than Park Hyatt hotels, particularly those that are in resort destinations and offer pools or are in mountain locations for skiing. Park Hyatt hotels tend to be more focused on cities.
If you want the best brand for family-friendly luxury hotels, it is usually best at Four Seasons or some Belmond properties like the Hotel Cipriani.
10. Price
Park Hyatt hotels tend to be some of the most expensive hotels in a city, but with a Park Hyatt, you tend to get what you pay for with large rooms, a higher level of luxury, and often unique surroundings.
Park Hyatt Sydney is usually the most expensive hotel in Sydney, and while you can’t argue with its location, right on the waterfront in the rocks, the prices here can be eyewatering.
The same is true for Fairmont. They are expensive and excellent. However, Fairmont hotels tend to be cheaper than Park Hyatt hotels.
For a more reasonable Park Hyatt or Fairmont stay, check out our review of some of the cheapest Park Hyatt hotels and the cheapest Fairmont hotels.
11. Conclusion
While both Park Hyatt Hotels and Fairmont are excellent hotels in any city or resort, Park Hyatts are more luxurious and unique. Fairmont city hotels are often used as high-end conference hotels and tend to have a more generic decor and feel. The Fairmont ski hotels are particularly wonderful.
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