What Will the New Wave of Boutique Hotels Look Like?
Photo Credit: The unique boutique property called The Courts near Palm Springs, California. The Courts
Skift Take
Answers about the future look of boutiques might be seen in a new crop of hyper-specialized properties that map design to hyper-specific interests and communities.
On Experience
Colin Nagy is a marketing strategist and writes on customer-centric experiences and innovation across the luxury sector, hotels, aviation, and beyond. You can read all of his writing here.
If you think back to the original wave of boutique hotels, they were pretty revolutionary. Instead of the cookie-cutter lodging that an American traveler was used to, a wave of entrepreneurs created beautiful jewel boxes with personality and sensibility.
The movement started in the early 1980s and grew from one-offs to micro chains, to an eventual spot in the mainstream consciousness. People like Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell (Morgans), Chip Conley (Joie de Vivre), Liz Lambert (then Bunkhouse), the late Alex Calderwood (Ace), and countless others brought visions to life in ways that felt hyper-vivid—almost like living in a magazine, where no detail, scent, or texture was left to chance.
And the inspiration didn’t always come from lodging, it came from porting the glamou
