While we asked about Hilton’s plans for a lifestyle brand, the CEO Nassetta was still not talking. However, Nassetta did elaborate on innovation, the resort business and the iconic Waldorf Astoria in New York City.

　　In the wake of Hilton’s record-setting IPO in December, we had a chance in late January to sit down one-on-one with CEO Chris Nassetta to talk all things Hilton, or as much as he was willing to divulge as the now-leader of a public company.

　　While we asked about the company’s plans for a lifestyle brand, Nassetta was still not talking. However, Nassetta did elaborate on innovation, the resort business and the iconic Waldorf Astoria in New York City.

　　What can you tell us about upcoming innovation at the property level?

　　Chris Nassetta: Where the world is going is exactly where you’re going in your life and I’m going in mine – it’s customization, mass customization and personalization. Customers want more choice and control, and they want it their way.

　　What is so powerful about the iPhone? It’s choices, but it’s also the way I want it. It’s my control, my apps. I could take it, sit in a dark closet and interact with the world the way I want to, and I control it.

　　Think about all the different ways that applies to our business and think about all the ways that our business has not really changed in hundreds of years that, when you think about it, should change to give customers more choice and more control. You can do it in many different ways, using technology as the underlying means to that end.

　　We hear that customization story everywhere. How do you give these things to customers at a level that is going to differentiate Hilton?

　　Nassetta: I’ll give you one nugget. Part of the innovation is not necessarily about having to invent things; many of the things exist and have been tested. The innovation for us will be how you string it together and do it at massive scale. That will be the innovation. It’s not doing two or three hotels. It’s doing it at massive scale. We have 4,080 hotels and all my customers are created equal. So when I think about how we want to change our relationship with our customers, I want to change it on a very large scale.

　　Everyone is waiting to hear about Hilton’s plans for the lifestyle segment. What can you tell us?

　　Nassetta: We’re not quite there, but I will really enjoy talking to you about it when it’s time.

　　What will Hilton do next on the resort side of the business?

　　Nassetta: We’re the biggest resort player in the business. Going forward we want to continue that, and we want to do more of it. Obviously, we’re not building any of this with our capital. We’re working with third-party capital. We think the resort business is a good business, and then there’s the simple reason our customers want to be there in a primary sense, but also aspirationally from the standpoint of our most valuable HHonors members. So I think we need to serve our customers by doing more on the resort side.

　　In the Western world, the resort play right now is more conversion, which means in our case a lot of Doubletrees more than anything else. In the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America there is still a pretty good amount of new resort development.

　　Three years ago nobody was doing anything in the West, but the last resort boom had a lot to do with the residential that went along with it, and it got substantially overbuilt. That is being absorbed, but there is nobody really building a lot and I don’t think any time soon will we see a lot of high-end resorts being built in most of the West. It’s more conversions and as the recovery matures building will slowly come back like it always does, but it’s still a ways off.

　　The largest percentage of all of our resorts getting done are still going to be Hiltons and Doubletrees, and then with a good spattering of Conrads and Waldorfs, but by definition the luxury resorts are smaller and there are fewer of them. We have 25 hotels in the Conrad and Waldorf pipelines and a bunch of those are resorts, but by pure numbers the luxury business is just generally smaller.

　　What are your plans for renovating the flagship Waldorf Astoria in New York City?

　　Nassetta: We have invested pretty heavily in the Waldorf over the last five years. I think we put about US$175 million into it. You can see we’ve nearly finished the exterior of the building, the Park Avenue entrance and the motor court. We’ve been doing a lot of work and we are committed over time to finish the job.

　　We’ve been studying the various options for how to invest the money and maximize the value, and I’m hopeful sometime in the next six to 12 months we’ll tell people with a little more specificity how we plan to do that.