The Biggest Innovators in Travel and Hospitality: Winter 2025

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.

In my columns throughout 2024, I covered a lot of ground, but one common theme emerged: We are at an inflection point for luxury. The market is forcing a margin call on post-Covid excess, conspicuous consumption, and there is traveler backlash to excessive rates.

This pushback has created space for new thinking. I'm excited to see the stage being set for a new wave of entrepreneurs, innovators, and thinkers who can redefine the next phase of hospitality. The industry is moving away from old codes of ostentation and toward new forms of thoughtful spaces, evolutions in wellness, and solutions for the sharply conceived spaces that the hybrid work world needs. 

I'm also keeping a keen eye on Saudi Arabia and developments with the country’s Boutique Group, which specializes in turning former Saudi palaces and government buildings into hotels. I see a need for soulful, heritage-driven luxury amid the sea of hyper-expansion and bold products.

As I wrote in my Skift Megatrends piece this year, we are on the verge of a sea change in wellness, particularly regarding psychedelics and mind expansion. More broadly, there is a large customer cohort for whom intentionality and nuance are the draw — those who don't need Gordon Gekko-style egos reflected back at them at every turn, as is the case with much older luxury.

As I do twice a year, here is my list of the biggest innovators in travel and hospitality.

Hoshino Resorts stands as one of the most interesting hospitality brands globally, not just for its higher-end brand, Hoshinoya (slated to launch its first U.S. property), but also for its other brands, OMO and KAI. 

OMO offers an interesting concept for creative travelers: properties located near public transportation but away from the central thrum, serving as bases for urban exploration. The price points are reasonable, the rooms thoughtful, and the creative public spaces excellent. Their new Gotanda property features a roof garden and proximity to