How Nihi Hotels Adds a Wild Side to Luxury Travel

Nihi Sumba isn't your average luxury hotel. The 33-villa resort is set in around 500 acres of land on an Indonesian island, where, according to Nihi Hotels CEO James McBride, guests rarely ever see a boat in the ocean or a plane in the sky. This isolation is part of what McBride calls "the edge of wildness." "It's wild, but our accommodations are chic and elegant but not too much. Everything is at the right level and responsible," McBride told Skift columnist Colin Nagy at the recent Skift Global Forum in New York City. For McBride, who has spent his career in the hospitality industry, it is about creating a "warm and human" atmosphere not necessarily about striving for the highest luxury standard. "I got a letter from a guest, [in] which the guest wrote, Mr. McBride, we had the most wonderful time. However, your staff were consistently inconsistent with a consistent smile. "I read it over—consistently inconsistent—and I said, 'You know, that's about right.'"