Innovative Hoteliers Tap Craft Cocktail Culture for Luxury Guests

In chronicling the evolution of the luxury traveler, Skift has tracked the transition of consumers' tastes from desiring the most expensive to the most thoughtful of experiences and goods. It’s a trend that has made its way into the carefully crafted cocktails of the hotel bar — and opened the door for greater communication and community between hotels and the cities they serve. While the rise of cocktail culture began in places like Sydney, London and New York, its influence today is evident in nightlife and hotel bars in European cities from Paris to St. Petersburg. Although it is worth reading the New York Times’ chronicle of the slow rise of craft cocktails in Paris and its recognition of hospitality operator Experimental Group as triggering a cocktail revolution in France, we’d argue that the evolution—and its impact on the luxury hotel world—is nowhere more evident than Barcelona. Skift spoke with the teams behind the bars of high-end hotels and local cocktail lounges to understand the symbiotic relationships, powered ultimately by people, that drives this change. Luxury Hoteliers Innovate to Meet Guest Expectations One of the most luxurious of hotels in Barcelona is the Ritz-Carlton property Hotel Arts and its team recognized the cultural shifts and evolving tastes of their guests and embarked on a year-long journey to reimagine their bar offering. The hotel brought mixologist Diego Baud onboard and last September the started brainstorming the new concept of the bar develo