Hospitality Design - March 2012 - 43

trends: luxury

perspectives
By Alia Akkam

all for you
At the Berkeley in London, guests are encouraged to borrow from an ever-changing stash of vintage accessories stored in a handmade leather fashion trunk. At the Capella Pedregal in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, they can discover the origins of ingredients by attending cooking classes. When skiing is done for the day at 4 p.m., guests of Montage Deer Valley gather in the hotel’s pub and take to the four-lane bowling alley. And in Mexico City, a fresco by Manuel Rodriguez Lozano graces Grupo Habita’s new hotel, Downtown. Just a few years ago, a bathroom teeming with granite and gold is all a hotel needed to stake a claim in the luxury tier. But as Grupo Habita co-founder Carlos Couturier points out, “Luxury is moving from products to experiences. It’s no longer a brand, it is a lifestyle.” Horst Schulze, founder of Capella Hotels & Resorts, who plans to double the group’s portfolio by next year, opening in such disparate locations as Washington, DC and Sochi, Russia, has worked in the luxury market since he was 14 years old and has seen the face of upscale accommodations change dramatically. “If you really think about it, luxury thirty-ﬁve years ago was large lobbies with glass elevators. Then it moved on to a more sophisticated segment—Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton,” he recalls. “When I started Capella ten years ago, I didn’t have a hotel yet, but my dream was to follow what I learned ﬁfty years ago: that the [seasonal hotel] guest writes a letter and says, ‘I will come back on the ﬁrst of April, I want table number three and on Monday red roses; I want you to change them on Thursdays for yellow roses.’ In other words, the guest identiﬁed her product rather than us creating it. From there, we went into creating a product. We are now back to where we used to be, where the guests are in charge. We create what the guests want, and that is really luxury. The surroundings have to be ﬁrst class, the ﬁnishes have to be right, but it is not about chandeliers, it’s about quality.” & and experience.” Alan J. Fuerstman, founder and CEO of Montage Hotels Resorts, agrees, saying that “luxury has taken on a decidedly more understated and subtle form where comfort is a premium versus extravagance. There was a time when luxury was strictly deﬁned by formality and exempliﬁed by excess. In the new economy, the ultimate luxury is the ability to be oneself at all times—to live by a set of values that are unique and individualized. Fewer luxury consumers are looking to others

From left: Low-impact mountainside cabins comprise Endémico Resguardo Silvestre; a beach-hued guestroom and ocean views at the Capella Pedregal in Cabo San Lucas.

Getting Soft
Luxury’s poignant transformation may have even been accelerated by the economic downturn, Schulze points out, distilled to one overarching priority: “Luxury is simply just individualized, personalized attention” and not about “marble being cut ﬁve times.” Stephen Alden, CEO of London-based Maybourne Hotel Group, which encompasses the Berkeley, Claridge’s, and the Connaught, thinks the deﬁnition of luxury has been watered down in recent years. “I’ve found that the word has been far overused, co-opted by everyone from the midrange automobile manufacturer to the everyday clothing retailer, and no longer relating to those things of true value and substance,” he says. “While luxury might have once meant the richest fabrics and textiles available, it is now about more than that: it is how they are presented, how guests access them, and creating a truly authentic interaction

to be told what to do and are

Claridge’s ballroom has been restored to 1930s grandeur.

more conﬁdent doing the things that they personally love.”

This new economy, according to Banyan Tree executive chairman, Ho Kwon Ping, is characterized by “soft” product versus “hard,” which emphasizes “the quality of an experience as the basis of value, instead of the physical product. Intelligent design, sustainable conservation efforts, innovative uses of space—these are all hallmarks of today’s luxurious experience.” He adds that it boils down to “guests wanting to feel ‘at home’ when they are away. With the increased demand on comfort and the more casual approach to luxury embraced by new technology pioneers and followers, hotels and resorts have reverted away from an over-complicated, prohibitive type of luxury, and to a more cozy, homey philosophy.”

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - March 2012
