Luxury Travel

Luxury short-term rentals sit at the intersection of old-world hospitality, expert-led curation, and innovative new-world tech, but they'll need unique models to stand apart in the rapidly growing alternative accommodations sector.

When it comes to keeping up with the Joneses, luxury travel brands are falling behind. The value of brands from fashion, automotive, and financial services sectors is far stronger than those from hospitality and travel.

Within the travel industry, brands like Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons loom large. But according to a just-released study of brand valuation, in the real world, hospitality brand names don't carry as much weight as their high-end counterparts in other industry sectors. To address this, companies like Marriott and Hilton are focusing on establishing ironclad loyalty offerings.

Independent hotels are well-positioned to capitalize on a growing consumer appetite for experiential destinations and one-of-a-kind moments. Enduring soft brands like Preferred Hotels & Resorts are now taking advantage of this shift by tapping their 50-plus years of experience delivering for consumers while boosting revenues and lowering costs for hotel owners.

It will likely take years for the wellness industry to really fix its diversity problem. But the process could speed up if more people start to speak out about it.

In a growing luxury wellness trend that's built to last, nature comes indoors in the form of living green walls, natural materials, and more at high-end hotels.

It seems like every hospitality brand these days is eager to jump on the wellness bandwagon. Most do so by adding a gym or throwing a yoga mat in the room. But some luxury hotels are taking a more esoteric approach, namely through biophilic design.

Abuse of staff is a problem in hospitality. And too often, it gets swept under the rug. What will it take for a zero-tolerance policy to actually be enforced — consistently?

The ancient Greeks did it. So did the ancient and not-so-ancient Romans, Japanese, and Chinese. Heck, even some of the founding fathers of the United States did it too. But despite its illustrious past, the idea of taking the waters has never really caught on in the United States, until now. Hot springs could be on the verge of a major wellness moment.

When hospitality companies claim to be all about sustainability, perhaps they need to think twice before setting up shop in fragile environments.