Viceroy Hotels’ Founder to Launch New Proper Hotels Brand


Skift Take

Can one hotel brand attract the tech crowd, urban enthusiasts, creative professionals and luxury hounds? Proper Hotels is aiming to do that because the next generation traveler is all of those.

With the rise of so-called urban "innovation districts" rearranging so many downtown cores so quickly, there’s been a lack of hotel product to keep pace that aligns with the startup and creative professional crowds swarming to them. Launching today, Proper Hotels is a new lifestyle hospitality brand that will attempt to bridge the luxury mindset of a brand like Viceroy Hotels with the quixotic underground spirit of ones like Ace Hotel or 21c Hotels. Opening first in San Francisco's Mid-Market neighborhood at the end of 2015, Proper is the brainchild of CEO Brad Korzen, the founder and former CEO of Viceroy Hotels. Along with co-founders Brian De Lowe and Alex Samek, Korzen envisions a hotel experience we really haven’t seen before that’s attempting to embrace the interdisciplinary fusion taking place in innovation districts around the world. These are urban residential/commercial mixed-use environments that blend historic ‘hoods with high-tech startup firms, DIY cul