In 1957, the Hyatt House hotel near the Los Angeles airport was purchased by Jay Pritzker, a member of the wealthy Chicago family descended from Nicholas Pritzker, who emigrated from Kiev to the Windy City in 1881. By 1961, Jay Pritzker had created a six-hotel chain. During the late 1960s, Hyatt spun off a separate entity, Hyatt International. By the end of the 1970s, Hyatt operated a 52-hotel chain with nearly $300 million in annual sales, placing it among the top 15 hotel chains in the United States. At the end of the century, still owned by the Pritzker family and still based in Chicago, Hyatt and Hyatt International together operated or licensed about 200 hotels and employed about 80,000 people around the world. In the Chicago area, the companies had about 3,500 workers.

This entry is part of the Encyclopedia's Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses (1820-2000) that was prepared by Mark R. Wilson, with additional contributions from Stephen R. Porter and Janice L. Reiff.