How can hotels and resorts elevate the value proposition of traditional hospitality spaces to offer unforgettable experiences that cannot be replicated by the shared economy?
Last month, Hilton announced it is expanding its footprint in the luxury accommodation market by acquiring a controlling interest in Sydell Group, the conglomerate behind more than 100 boutique hotels, including NoMad Hotels and hip luxury brands such as The LINE, Freehand, and The Ned.
The acquisition puts Hilton in charge of expanding the NoMad brand to up to 100 hotels, with deals for 10 hotels in "advanced stages of discussion." While Hilton will lead all future development for the NoMad brand, Sydell will continue to handle design, branding, and management.
Hilton previously announced in 2022 that it planned to more than double its lifestyle portfolio by 2032. The NoMad deal is a departure from Hilton's longtime "build, don't buy" growth strategy of organically developing new brands internally, eschewing the acquisitions of existing hotel chains that have helped define rivals Marriott, IHG and Accor. But recently, Hilton has acquired two: Graduate Hotels and now NoMad.
As a luxury lifestyle hotel, NoMad will be a nice complement to Hilton’s portfolio – Hilton has lifestyle hotels. Hilton has #luxury hotels, but Nomad will be its first brand to offer both. The tricky part for Hilton is to find the right management philosophy and balance to integrate the NoMad and Graduate Hotel brands in the Hilton Brands family and system while maintaining the soul, attractiveness, and uniqueness that the Graduate Hotels and NoMad brands have to offer.
#boutiquehotels #brandethos #HospitalityInnovation #GuestExperienceEvolution
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Chief Revenue Officer at Alliants
1moThis is a fantastic article James O'Keeffe SJS. Thank you so much for eloquently sharing your thoughts. I often think about Luxury experiences particularly in places where they are least expected. I appreciate your consideration of metrics and data overall really. The business of hotels and the hotel business share many KPIs for investors and owners suchs as RevPAR, ADR, and a bit GOPPAR (this metric is finally get a bit more notice). We look at conversion metrics internally but, we fail to look more deeply at the intangibles that make up the guest journey or even "loyalty" which is another topic which needs redefining, I truly believe that our industry needs to leverage newer and more and deeper KPIs as it pertains to the customer journey. Here in the United States we have seen this renaissance of data and KPIs with Baseball of all things. The book and film Moneyball explored the context of looking at new forms of data to create and measure success. It has fundamentally changed the metrics that management utilizes for team performance.