Nobu Hotels CEO on a Restaurant-First Approach to Hospitality
Photo Credit: The Nobu Hotel Riyadh is set to open later this spring. The hotel side of the business thinks about its restaurant business as the biggest draw. Nobu Hospitality
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[/c
