Ireland’s Doyle Collection Revamps Luxury Hotel Strategy
Skift Take
True, Doyle Collection, a family-run luxury hotel group, is a small player. But the strategy of its new CEO Gordon Drake, who previously sold Six Senses to IHG and Fairmont Raffles to Accor, underscores what indie brands are thinking now.
Early Check-In
Editor’s Note: Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill brings readers exclusive reporting and insights into hotel deals and development, and how those trends are making an impact across the travel industry.To better understand the independent luxury hotel scene, I recently sat down with Gordon Drake, who last year became CEO of the Doyle Collection — an Irish family owned group of luxury hotels operating in Dublin, Cork, London, Bristol, and Washington D.C.
Drake knows his way around luxury hospitality investment.
In 2017, Drake joined Six Senses as chief financial offer. He sold the business in 2019 to IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group). He previously sold Fairmont Raffles to Accor while he was the chief financial officer of Kingdom Hotels in Dubai, where the portfolio had more than $14 billion in assets at the time. He's been a board member of the Savoy Hotel in London and Movenpick Hotels and Resorts and a treasurer at Rocco Forte Hotels. He's been chief investment officer at Westmont Hospitality, one of the world’s largest privately held managers and operators of hotels.The Irish family that owns Doyle Collection tapped Drake to help mak
