Articles tagged “boutique hotels”

It's one thing to sell a curated portfolio of hotel rooms to luxury travelers. It's another thing altogether to keep them coming back, and branch out into selling experiences that are more than just a hotel stay.

While The Hoxton range of hotels is pretty wallet-friendly, they only work in certain key cities. By taking the best aspects of the brand but at a much lower cost base, owner Ennismore might just have chanced on a winning strategy with NoCo.

Disruption makes for strange bedfellows and in hospitality, that means partnering with a cool eatery or food delivery service, or chucking the decades-old, tried-and-true but dated technology and signing up with a new computer-in-the-cloud vendor. Above all, being bland and the same as everyone else is a deal-breaker.

Smaller lifestyle hotel groups are no longer disruptors in hospitality, so they need to evolve beyond the oversimplified "boutique is better" message.

They don't call him the "godfather of boutique" for nothing. Schrager's candid, insightful remarks give you a glimpse into the inner workings of a true innovator — and they will certainly surprise you.

Boutique hoteliers are just as optimistic about the future of their businesses as the CEOs of the big brands, but we wonder if their optimism is a bit overstated. In a world where "boutique" and "lifestyle" have become so ubiquitous, and even the big brands are adopting their design and service aesthetics, we wonder if boutique hotels can still hold onto their competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded marketplace of brands.

citizenM gives its guests more for less while "only selling a night of sleep" in an understated fashion, as co-founder Michael Levie put it. Its model can be illuminating for big and small hotels alike in understanding what happens when data and technology are used to their potentials.

It's an odd experiment from an unconventional brand.

More footballers should invest in the travel industry. Maybe even band together and buy an airline (or two).

The lifestyle hotel segment is being pushed to innovate more quickly and drastically than ever before. Although the competition will continue to swell for several more years, we expect only a few brands will be left standing at the end.