The disappearance of the emeritus kings of the Barcelona hotel nomenclature is a revelation of the current zeitgeist. These are new times, the first female heir to the throne of Spain in two centuries performs military service, the Juan Carlos hotel is now called Torre Melina and the Sofía, Grand Hyatt Barcelona. Change so as not to be left behind. The Catalan capital is experiencing an explosion of large international hotel brands and Javier Águila, president of Hyatt for the Europe, Africa and Middle East (Eame) market since the end of 2022, has a lot to do with it.
Born in Badalona in 1975, he directs the expansion of the North American giant on the continent and in Spain in particular. The brand new Grand Hyatt in Barcelona, owned by Blossom and Axa, which reopened this week, is part of this intense growth strategy – they hope to add up to eight establishments in the city alone.
Theirs is a unique story within the sector, where local sagas abound. Coming from a middle-class family with no ties to the business world, he trained at the Marists of Badalona and studied Business Administration and Management at Esade, a career he arrived at almost by chance. “He was a good student and everyone assumed that he would choose engineering,” he remembers. But a high school classmate suggested he attend an open day at the business school and his proposal hooked him. After graduating, he completed an MBA at Columbia with a scholarship from the Rafael del Pino Foundation and the ICO and began a period as a consultant in firms such as Booz Allen or McKinsey and in venture capital as a member of the European team of The Carlyle Group. “I got to know more than 40 sectors up close,” he comments. In general, I was attracted to all of them by their operation, but the hotel industry was the only one with which I had a real crush.”
He then decided to launch his first business as an entrepreneur. In 2014 he founded the Alua hotel chain. It was a time when hotel ownership and management were unified in the Spanish market and when direct sales were conspicuous by their absence. Águila saw an opportunity to change the business and in just four years his company went from zero to fifteen establishments, in addition to being a pioneer in the entry of institutional investors into the country's hotel sector. Four years later, the American Apple Leisure Group bought a 70% stake in the company and Águila assumed its presidency for Europe. His career took another leap when Hyatt acquired Apple Leisure Group in 2021 for $2.7 billion, including his stake. After a few months he joined the company as president of Eame.
Since then he has lived in Zurich, where Hyatt has its headquarters for the region. Although you could also say that his home is hotels and airplanes. He has taken up to 200 flights a year to visit the establishments under his responsibility and look for new opportunities, so in some way he has fulfilled another of his dreams: to be an airplane pilot, a passion that comes from his childhood and the movie Top Gun. Another of his great hobbies is basketball. As a native of Badalona, he played several years in the youth categories of La Penya, a team of which he is still a fan. His father, who died when he was 22, worked as a physical education teacher and coached the Spanish athletics team, so sport was always very present in his life. “When I was little I wanted to be a basketball player, but when I was 18 I faced someone who ended up playing professionally and I saw the distance that separated us…” he recalls.
From his time as an athlete he has taken with him values that he applies in his career, "sacrifice, mental strength, leadership...". Single and without children, he is part of the advisory board of the Yellow venture capital fund, launched by one of the founders of Glovo. “I want new entrepreneurs, like I once was, to have opportunities, for someone to listen to them.”
