Skift Take
It certainly helps to have your hotels named after a wildly successful global restaurant chain, but making sure people don't only think of your brand as a place to eat can be a challenge.
The name "Nobu" is synonymous with an exceptional Japanese dining experience, perfected by chef Nobu Matsuhisa over a more than 30-year career. Matsuhisa, together with actor Robert De Niro and restaurateur Drew Nieporent, opened the first Nobu restaurant in 1994 and to date, there are now 38 Nobu restaurants worldwide.
But if you talk to Trevor Horwell, the CEO of Nobu Hospitality, Nobu represents much more than just a restaurant experience. It's a true lifestyle brand that also encompasses a relatively small, but growing portfolio of luxury hotels, too — eight of which are open now, and eight more are in the pipeline.
Horwell's primary focus as CEO is to continue to grow the Nobu Hotels brand and as he opens up diners' eyes to the fact that cannot only eat at a Nobu but stay at one, too, he hasn't forgotten the brand's origins in the process.
[caption id="attachment_278072" align="alignright" width="278"] Trevor Horwell, CEO of Nobu Hospitality. Source: Nobu Hospitality[/caption]
"We don't normally do a hotel unless we think that a Nobu Restaurant can do well in that location," Horwell told Skift. "That's very important because what we want to do first and foremost is to make sure there is a draw for locals, and that really comes down to the Nobu Restaurant."
Horwell said the majority of his Nobu hotel restaurant diners — 80 percent on average — are local residents, not hotel guests. "It's not like a tourist restaurant. We like to attract the locals. We want that built-in customer."
Horwell has experience in running hotels that share the same brand as dining establishments. Prior to joining Nobu Hospitality in 2009, he was the chief hotels officer at Hard Rock Hotels and Casinos. While at Hard Rock, he and his team were tasked with "reinventing the brand," whereas with Nobu, Horwell wants to emphasize the restaurants first and foremost.
"We are defined by the restaurant, in a way," he said. "We play to our strengths. If you look at the hotel business today, the majority of hotels are suffering because they don't lead with food and beverage. They don't have strong food-and-beverage concepts, and a lot of hotels are losing money. Today, we play to our strengths because that is one area that we do very, very well, and we bring in locals."
The idea to launch Nobu Hotels, he said, came from the fact that when Nobu Restaurants were located inside of a hotel, they "were the draw for the hotel and we were bringing in customers." He
