Until the collective nightmare that was 2020, many so-called high-end hotels had a reputation for trying to persuade guests to pay for often dingy guest rooms lacking any real views inside an otherwise ornate structure with a storied, celebrated past, where the first impression was a check-in often akin to applying for a bank loan. Defined as “luxury,” in the good old days they got away with it.
Over the 30 years I spent running Amanpuri and Trisara on Phuket, Thailand, I heard hundreds of people complain of feeling ripped off at “legendary” and “iconic” hotels by rude staff that treated them as anything but guests.
How many of us did not tip the head waiter after dinner on the first night, to return the next evening and find ourselves stashed at a table by the kitchen door, or getting ushered past the prime and utterly empty deck chairs (with a book on them) by an indifferent pool boy rushing to count his bounty at the pool bar?
Thailand-based Anthony Lark is the founder and president of the Phuket Hotels Association. He also runs his own luxury hospitality company focused on resort and residential villa design.
As we in the hotel business look towards vaccine jabs while collectively praying for people to start traveling again, let’s say goodbye to all that stale pretence and manufactured pomp. Emerging from the darkness that was 2020, we hoteliers need to consider that life will not bounce back to all that, nor should it.
Merriam-Webster luxury definition number 1: a condition of abundance or great ease and comfort.
“There will always be people willing to pay,” said the late, great Natale Rusconi of the Cipriani in Venice and Splendido in Portofino. The size of the room didn’t matter, he observed, nor did the price of a cup of coffee, as long as guests cocooned in an “exclusive” world with an established reputation of being the best.
A classic negroni or a plate of risotto on the terrace at Cipriani is luxurious, not so much because of the ingredients (although they are the best), but because it’s a rare experience.
Sonu Shivdasani, owner of Soneva resorts, hits it on the head when describing luxury:
“Our external communication focuses much more on our brand proposition of ‘Inspiring a Lifetime of Rare Experiences’.”
Change is coming
In my conversations with many wealthy, well-traveled former guests living in the northern hemisphere, they are explicit about what they yearn for on the other side of their drawn-out lockdowns.
These people are the ones who every year asked me for the largest villa with the bluest views and the most kitted-out yacht for a day on the Andaman Sea, and now I sense they seek something distinctly less material. While I am not surprised to hear them in their Bel Air mansions and apartments overlooking the River Seine asking for deals, what they say next piques my interest.
“Anthony, I don’t need the presidential suite when we come back,” they say without a whiff of disappointment to downgrade. They are increasingly asking not for the specs on yachts but for news of wellness offerings and rare, secret local experiences.
One company already excelling in this beyond-luxury space is Six Senses, purchased in 2019 by the behemoth InterContinental Hotels brand but left to run relatively independently under CEO Neil Jacobs. Jacobs has spoken often of his personal aversion to the words luxury and exclusivity, which he sees as being in direct opposition to Six Senses’ holistic ethos.
Community engagement, he argues, is not only an aspect of the brand’s sustainability guidelines but also critical to “the intrinsic value of the content around what is being offered” at each property.
Like Jacobs, I noticed even before COVID that bragging rights back home no longer focus solely on price-tagged acquisitions. Those same guests who regaled me during lockdown with tales from their past travels talked about Bhutanese textile weavers, Portuguese sourdough bakers, Colombian coffee farmers or Thai fishermen with whom they shared meaningful encounters. Perhaps we all learned in lockdown that these memories endure far longer than those of decadent bed linens or fluffy-as-a-cloud bathrobes.
Before any of us had given a thought to wet markets in Wuhan, our industry was abuzz with “experiential” and “transformational” travel offerings, and we see smaller, more nimble independent hotels and resorts luring guests away from staid grand dames while commanding higher rates.
I suspect we will now enter a new era, best described by Morris Sim, one of the smartest marketing minds I know. He predicts travelers will be embracing the idea that “luxury is the outcome of an experience, not a product.”
Merriam-Webster luxury definition number 2: something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary.
To be clear, this is not a rallying cry to spend amidst an economic crisis. Luxurious experiences may be as humble as a thoughtful gesture or act of kindness by a staff member.
Going forward, the hotels that redefine luxury will help guests make meaningful, immersive connections with the surrounding culture and environment while also delivering unpretentious, anticipatory service with thoughtful human touches.
Merriam-Webster luxury definition number 2b: an indulgence in something that provides pleasure, satisfaction, or ease
Throughout the heady 1990s, we opened a new Amanresort every year or so. Initially, they were revolutionary upstarts compared with the most famous resorts of the ’70s and ’80s where gold sink taps stood out against bathrooms laden with Carrera marble.
Into this arena where remote controlled toilets that blew air on your arse were regarded luxurious, Adrian Zecha’s vision for each Aman was unashamedly simple in design and utterly lacking in superfluous finishings.
The late architect Ed Tuttle, who mastered this understatement, used to tell his team and clients that “It’s not about embellishment, it’s about owning the space.” By this he meant that humans are most at ease in spaces that function well for them rather than for shelter magazines and marketing brochures.
As we leave hibernation behind, I strongly believe our guests will gravitate to uncluttered places where simplicity reigns, where they can look better and feel better about their emergent selves and where they can enjoy consequential encounters with fascinating strangers, after feeling cut off for so long.
My personal view is that successful hotels must throw off past definitions of luxury and pivot towards delivering authentically local guest experiences and anticipative service that surprises and delights.
Are we headed towards a new paradigm where our job is to nurture the “outcome of the experience” rather than counting threads of Egyptian cotton and embroidering initials on pillowslips?