Barcelona Openings Underline a Luxury Market in Transition
Skift Take
Sophisticated serenity is the best way to describe luxury hospitality in the Catalan capital where troubles including sky-high petty crime rates, legality surrounding Airbnb, and political tensions bubble under the surface. For a city once considered the coolest in Europe, its development is useful to watch for other cities just now entering their gilded age of tourism.
Barcelona has transformed from overlooked to overcrowded in a few decades, but the Catalan capital is now ready for its latest act.
There is no hotel that better marks its latest evolution as a tourism hot spot than the Sir Victor hotel. Opened this June off the famed Passeig de Gràcia, the city’s newest luxury lifestyle addition celebrates what Barcelona is and what its visitors hope it to be.
The opening comes from Liran Wizman’s Sir Hotel brand that spans Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, and Ibiza. Wizman got his start in hospitality in Israel, first as a lawyer and then in real estate, where he purchased small guesthouses to turn a profit. His investment portfolio continued to grow until the runaway success of the Park Hotel and its restaurant, Momo.
"Everybody asked, 'How do you open a restaurant in a hotel? Nobody from Amsterdam will go to the hotel,'” explained Wizman.
“It was the opposite, because it was such a big hit and packed from day one. The city loved it, and I really liked this idea of doing something in the city that people from there would actually want to go.”
Brand Craftsmanship
Although his hotel group would go on to develop projects for major luxury brands such as the Edition and W across Europe, Wizman started to grow tired of third-party projects and the straight real estate play. He sought out to create a stand-alone brand of his own.
[caption id="attachment_355172" align="alignright" width="185"] The rooftop of the Sir Victor Hotel provides intimate views of Gaudi's Casa Mila (La Pedrera).[/caption]
“It was very important to me that people would look at it, even if there were only 10, and people would know that it was one of ours,” he said at the recent opening of Sir Victor.
“We are in the business
