I am in awe of the way in which you have made tPH your own. Like in a hotel, you are here for a myriad of reasons, some to relax, some to get down to some serious work. Everything is welcome and appreciated.

Since the last edition of the Lobby, we have had some incredible collaborations, on service recovery, enlightened CEOs, and details that elevate a hotel.

In the meanwhile, lots of interesting things have happened in the hospitality scene, not least of them being the more extravagant than ever edition of Watches & Wonders in Geneva. As a special treat, this letter includes the inside scoop of the event.

Enjoy!

(Note for email readers: This post is longer than what displays well in email. For the full reading experience, please view it on the website version.)

Welcome to The Lobby_, a roundup of what’s happening in hospitality, served with a point of view.

In this letter (by far the longest and juiciest edition so far): Met Gala hotel politics, the inside scoop on Watches and Wonders 2026, a very hospitality Milan design week, and all things Coachella.

• The Met Gala happened, and the getting ready in the hotel room spiel is getting more relevant by the year. 60 celebrities this year got ready at The Mark this week, with the rest staying at properties the likes of the Carlyle and the Lowell, as well as the Surrey, which is now the cool place to stay (thank you to my sources @Mila Stolk and @Seriesandthings for pointing this out). The managing director of the property, which is a Corinthia hotel, told People that the hotel has understood how important the hours leading up to the gala are, and now intentionally focuses on “supporting preparation, creativity, and storytelling”.

  Why precisely these hotels are the go-tos for the Gala attendees is largely logistical, as the proximity to the stairs of the Met is convenient. But I would love to see fashion houses choosing the property based on their alignment in storytelling and aesthetics, intentionally using the hotel as an extension of the brand’s world.

  Whether the fashion houses are paying rack rate or the hotels are cutting deals for the exposure they’re getting, no one knows (if you do know please share with the class!). But the economics are nonetheless fascinating, and these hotels are reaping the benefits of the cultural capital that comes from being associated with fashion’s big night.

• Coachella generated $870 million in media impact value in one weekend, all propelled by the art of hospitality. The festival has essentially turned into a content-churning machine, and the numbers of the 2026 edition are staggering. As 250,000 people headed for the desert, hotel rates in Palm Springs went up by 62%. Music aside, what caught my attention (and many others’, sparking conversation about the ’rich’ and ’poor’ sides of Coachella) was the world-building and brand activations that were again very hospitality-based.

  Rhode had touch-up rooms and claw machines, YSL Beauty had a multi-sensory drive-through with burgers, Camp Poosh had massages and a lakeside beach club, and Marc Jacobs orchestrated its eyewear launch with Tao Group Hospitality, a partnership that is going to continue beyond Coachella. The latter makes me especially happy, because while hospitality is an extremely important part of these activations and the cultural capital they generate (and increasingly so), rarely does a hospitality brand get accredited in this way.

  🚨Prediction alert (you heard it here first)🚨: Hospitality brands will become more and more visible in festivals like Coachella. Currently it’s very F&B-focused, but I think strategically savvy hotel brands will get in the game. Imagine if we saw a Janu (Aman’s more social sister brand) activation? (And yes, I know that Soho House hosted its own pop-up on the premises, but the members’ club is arguably not currently in the books of cool.)

• Fashion brands opened restaurants left and right at Milan Design Week. Marimekko revealed Osteria Fiori di Marimekko with aperitivo bites by Helsinki chef Maud Saddok, jasmine-infused drinks from the garden, bocce tournaments, limited-edition espresso cups… I loved it. Staff obviously wore the brand’s newest floral prints. Meanwhile, Marni took over Pasticceria Cucchi which is a legendary 1930s Milanese café for a three-month residency, where they redesigned everything from the sugar packets to the milk jugs to the staff uniforms. Wallpaper* called it “brand immersion at its finest.”

  This is further confirmation on the rising trend of world-building for fashion brands, and hospitality being part of it is becoming standard.

• Watches and Wonders just wrapped its biggest edition yet, and hospitality was évidemment the real star. Nearly 60,000 visitors, 50,000 hotel nights in Geneva, and an interesting demographic with a quarter of ticket buyers being under 25. For the Lobby’s first-ever House Guest section, I asked communications strategist and branding enthusiast Baina Eliseeva to tell us what she saw on the ground and the special inside scoop for hospitality people.

According to my Watches and Wonders insider Baina, hospitality has taken center stage at the event, especially at this year’s rendition which was bigger and better than ever.

”Inside Jaeger-LeCoultre’s ‘Valley of Inventions’ booth, I noticed clients trying on novelties at Le Chalet itself, where two-Michelin-star Swiss chef Gilles Varone was serving a cheese dégustation in an alpine-inspired setting built around the dairy heritage of the Vallée de Joux, JLC’s birthplace. Watch in hand, cheese on the palate, at the same table.

JLC had hinted at this in 2025 with the 1931 Café by chocolatier Mathieu Davoine, tucked inside a booth themed around the Reverso‘s polo origins. Four experimental chocolate creations echoed the watch’s Art Deco heritage. Open to public visitors, unusual for a programme of that quality, which normally stays behind the press-and-VIP curtain.

This year, the fair caught up. The Wake Up! Café by Michelin-starred chef Danny Khezzar opened inside Palexpo, and the event extended beyond its walls with a curated restaurant guide via TheFork and an evening Montreux Jazz Club pop-up on the lakefront.”

Baina points out that this same effect is happening in fashion. ”Prada’s Marchesi, Louis Vuitton’s cafés, Tiffany’s Blue Box Café, and others. Luxury is converging on the same idea. A watch catalogue tells you the specs, but a cheese dégustation reveals what to expect once you are inside the brand’s universe.”

The overarching pattern at W&W was that brands are investing into worldbuilding and staging experiences.

”Audemars Piguet, back at the event for the first time in six years opened the House of Wonders, which was more of an exhibition than a booth. TAG Heuer leaned full motorsport, with an F1 car and Steve McQueen’s Porsche 917 parked inside.”

With the conjoined history of watchmaking and timekeeping, sports have an ever-growing presence at Watches & Wonders 🏎️🏎️🏎️

”Last year, they had an Oracle Red Bull Racing simulator for clients to test their lap times, but this year there was a dedicated corner that told the Monaco’s story. Since taking over as F1’s official timekeeper in 2025, the brand reports a 15% jump in boutique footfall and 20% growth in F1 collection sales, and the space is clearly designed to keep that momentum going.”

Overall, the event is a giant case study in experiential retail. Baina mentioned Ulysse Nardin’s very freaky two-metre kinetic sculpture. ”Visually it recalled Gentle Monster’s flagships, where kinetic heads have become a signature. But Gentle Monster’s heads are anonymous while Ulysse Nardin’s had Ludwig Oechslin’s face, the watchmaker who designed the Freak in 2001, a watch so radical it had no dial, no hands, and no crown.”

”Hermès was the most theatrical. Artist Jean-Simon Roch designed a wooden automaton of ropes, pulleys, and counterweights, with movement woven into the architecture itself.”

The main takeaway for brands according to Baina: ”when every competitor has a beautiful product, the space around it becomes the differentiator”.

Preach! I could not agree more with Baina’s sentiment. Hopefully next year we can also have tPH reporting from the ground. Stay tuned!

What I'm reading, watching, or listening to; hospitality-related or not. Consider it a peek into what's influencing my thinking.

As some of you may know, I have a degree in global and comparative philosophy, which happened in my life before hospitality. During my studies I delved into (in addition to the Western philosophical canon) African, Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Indian philosophical traditions.

While I decided not to pursue philosophy further academically (for now), I never stopped researching the topics that interest me, one of them being old Buddhist traditions. Right now, I’m brushing up my knowledge on the chakra system by reading Wheels of Life by Dr. Anodea Judith.

I got very inspired, hence I’m cooking up something fun for tPH.

A hotel that has been on my radar.

Guys, did you really think I was not going to mention the announcement of the Texas Aman? Amansanu is set to open in 2027 with standalone villas, and naturally, branded residences (it seems to be standard now).

I saw someone mention that there will be full-fledged horse stables. I am ready to finally fulfill my cowgirl dreams.

That’s all for this edition of The Lobby. I truly appreciate your presence.

🔑 Emma

A recent What the Luxe interview with design pioneer Stephen Bayley centered around the general disintegration of design, and how its sentiment of “effort and care beyond what is necessary” is now seen as frivolous.

Anant Sharma, the host, stated that:

“It has become so irrational to take the more charming path that it’s almost unjustifiable”

Yet, the converse is probably closer to the truth.

It is precisely through attention to detail and making said detail charming that we can unlock the most value and impact. This applies to both design of physical spaces and products, as well as experience design, no matter the industry.

When interacting with an offering is made as intuitive and emotionally resonant as possible, it will turn consumers into spokespeople.

Why are details so important?

How you do one thing is how you do everything.

This is a phrase often attributed to Zen Buddhism, but it is also one that Will Guidara mentions frequently in his book Unreasonable Hospitality. For Guidara, the phrase became a guiding principle in bringing his restaurant Eleven Madison Park from a great restaurant to the best in the world.

Translating this phrase into practice meant putting an unreasonable amount of effort into each detail in the restaurant; from silverware to coffee beans to placing the plate in a way where the guest has an easier time checking who manufactured it.

This purpose of this letter, however, is not to relay what Guidara has written. Instead, it is a curated list of details we find incredibly chic impactful, courtesy of two self-proclaimed hotel enthusiasts.

In this letter: a big boy list of absolutely life-changing details in hotels, curated by and , the tasteful mind behind The Other HAFH (a hospitality newsletter you do not want to miss)

Read The Other HAFH

50 details that make a hotel (or service experience) so f****** good

The following list is non-exhaustive, and includes examples from other areas than hotels, such as wellness experiences. Enjoy.

1. Handwritten notes from the hotel

2. A chic ‘do not disturb’ sign. Imagine a leather tassel hanging off the door instead of a flimsy plastic one.

3. A velvet tray where you can place your jewelry and watch during a facial, instead of having to throw them in your bag or on the table. This is the standard experience at Biologique Recherche.

4. High-quality stationery, such as a heavy-duty pen and envelopes (obviously in addition to a notepad).

5. Real, fresh flowers in the room or around the property(and preferably also strange or whimsical).

6. A signature fragrance that reminds you of the property forever and ever when you come upon it again. However, with nuance (see point 31)

7. Fresh newspapers with an intentional selection. I like to have FT Weekend at hand.

8. A REAL Finnish sauna, where you are actually allowed to throw water on the stones (Note from Emma: Yes, I’m a snob, I’m Finnish, this is my culture. I’m available for sauna consultancy).

9. When you are brought a beverage and your coat is taken for you at the very moment you set foot on the property.

10. Nice hotel slippers. I’m so over the flimsy, white, Temu-quality slippers. I’m calling it: the baseline expectation for luxury hotels from now on is high quality slippers that can be worn comfortably throughout the hotel, from the room to the spa to breakfast.

11. When they don’t ask: “Is this your first time staying with us?” (because they should already know, especially at luxury properties)

12. A Polaroid camera in the room because why not! (Bob W. has one in every room) Surprise your guests, they will tell their friends.

13. Thought-through staff uniforms, whether they are somehow unexpected or charmingly traditional. More important than the style, however, is that they are high quality and made from breathable, natural matierials.

14. Small keepsakes to take with. Belmond has a collectible sticker for each property. The Goring gifts kids a stuffed animal.

15. Little pockets of shared spaces, or a favorite, an in-hotel library.

16. Books that can be borrowed and read, that have something to do with the storytelling of the property. Rosewood Amsterdam has a shelf of books that were gifted by collaborators and friends of the hotel.

17. Quality merch. Brand extension galore when you can live your favorite hotel’s aesthetic beyond the stay.

18. A proper hair dryer. Firefly in Zermatt has a Dyson in every single room.

19. Mini bar stocked with local goods, and hot take: the mini bar should always be complimentary at luxury hotels! (Note from Sanchita: YES! Don’t give me coca cola or sprite. I want to know the regional soda that nobody outside a fifty mile radius has heard of. I also want to know the local chocolatier, the small-batch preserve. Let me in on the surrounding area, and I’ll stop resenting the upcharge.)

20. Heated bathroom floors.

21. Turndown service and a refill of the aforementioned complimentary minibar.

22. A complimentary spa treatment. Mont Cervin Palace offers a 30-minute facial for all guests (Note from Emma: it rivaled a Biologique Recherche treatment, no joke!)

23. A tea, coffee, and snack station in the common area. Bonus points for (branded) takeaway cups so you can zoom out for a coffee walk.

24. Plug points where you actually need them. That could be next to the bed, near the desk, not hidden behind the wardrobe or requiring furniture rearrangement.

25. A room with one overhead setting and no bedside dimmer is a room designed to be photographed, not slept in. A reading light that doesn’t need the overhead should be non-negotiable.

26. Blackout curtains that actually black out. The gap down the middle. Always the gap down the middle. A design failure so consistent it might as well be intentional.

27. Mirror placement. The hotel that gives you a full-length mirror somewhere with decent light has understood my psyche.

28. Enough drawer space to actually unpack. The wardrobe rail with four hangers expects you to live out of your suitcase. Many of us just accept this, but we shouldn’t.

29. Speaking of hangers, they need to detach from the rail. I don’t know when the fixed anti-theft hanger became a thing, but I would be mortified if I found them at a so-called luxury destination. The hotel is essentially saying they don’t trust you.

30. The bathroom counter. Surface area. Most boutique hotels sacrifice it for the stone slab aesthetic and leave you balancing your toiletries on the edge of the sink. Like the one below; plenty of surface area.

    

31. I don’t mind hotels with a signature scent. That’s encouraged. But I don’t want it in the room. The room should smell of nothing, and a neutral scent is surprisingly hard to achieve.

32. The shower pressure. Temperature, too. Both need to be consistent but variable.

33. Towel quantity. Rule of thumb: stock rooms with more towels than necessary.

34. Also, bath sheets, not just bath towels. The size distinction is notable.

35. The bedside table surface area. Similar to the bathroom counter, the bedside table should have room for miscellaneous objects. Phone, water glass, reading glasses, trinkets, etc. (Note from Emma: and the 5-6 journals and books I’m always carrying with me)

36. Pillow choice. Firm or soft, offered without being requested. Hotels that do this have understood that sleep is a core product.

37. Water. Always. A full carafe, refilled at turndown, without it appearing on the bill. Charging for still water in a four-star-or-more hotel is abhorrent.

38. Adequate task lighting at the desk. The number of hotels with a desk that can’t actually be used for work after dark is an indictment of who they imagined was staying.

39. More lighting woes: wardrobe lighting. A dark wardrobe in a dark room requires a phone torch to locate dark trousers. Solved by a motion sensor costing less than the soap amenities.

40. A printed neighbourhood map or city guide. I love the Orso Guides that Orso Hotels print and leave in each of their hotel guest rooms in Paris.

41. Similar to this, a note about what’s happening in the city that week. Curated and dated.

42. Portable umbrellas. I appreciate that hotels can provide those massive ones when needed, but sometimes you just want one that slides into your bag when you’re heading out.

43. A proper shoe horn. Long-handled. The detail is so small and so cheap to get right.

44. Breakfasts that can be taken at an actually reasonable hour. Not 6:30 am for early flights or 10 am as the outer limit. Give me breakfast until noon on weekends.

45. A stocked needle and thread kit. I don’t know why a lot of hotels stopped providing this, but they’re great to have just in case.

46. Learn the name of the guest and use it correctly. The recovery from mispronunciation isn’t to abandon the name and replace it with ‘ma’am’ for the remainder of the stay (Note from Sanchita: this has happened to me and is worse than the original error).

47. A bath that fits a human body comfortably. It sounds absurd to even have to say it, but so many are sculptural first and functional second.

48. The exact placement of the bedside lamp switch. If I have to lean past the lamp to find it, I’m out.

49. Tissue boxes that aren’t deeply recessed into stone or wood that you have to dig for the first tissue.

50. Curtain tracks that don’t catch halfway. The uneven glide is a mood kill.

It is simple to applaud, congratulate, and thoroughly enjoy a property that gets these details right.

And luckily, oftentimes great details are free (or cost the same) to execute, but make the world of a difference.

What did we miss? Hard agrees or disagrees? We’re dying to know!

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We hope you enjoyed your stay,

🔑 Emma and Sanchita

Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce (valued at $97 billion), meditates with spiritual gurus in India and has installed meditation rooms across every Salesforce office, and Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, is into long, silent, and ascetic Vipassana retreats where he eats like a bird and talks to no one.

Silicon Valley fixture Tim Ferriss’ thing is shamanic ceremonies and ayahuasca, and Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, is also touting the benefits of both meditation retreats and psychedelic ceremonies.

The tech bros, now infamously speaking against introspection, are quite paradoxically all aboard the hallucinogen train. A Google search for “psychedelic-assisted leadership training” returns over a million results.

Welcome to the consciousness revolution (corporate edition).

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The infrastructure of the awakened CEO

The tech bros themselves saw their growing interest in borderline spiritual leadership training as a market gap, which birthed the Costa Rica -based 1heart. This eco-luxury retreat center has hosted over 500 business leaders who are giving raving testimonials, all accompanied by a picture of a C-suite person exuding love for the world.

Alumni include billionaires, World Economic Forum delegates, TED speakers, and NGO founders, with 70% of participants are first timers with ayahuasca, and 80% come via referral from other executives.

Testimonials include:

• “It fundamentally transformed how I related to others nearly overnight.”

• “I felt this oneness. I felt connected to everyone and everything. I felt a lot of love for all the people in my life.”

• "You don't need to be that Goldman Sachs guy who just plays with ones and zeroes. You can be that and, at the same time, have a super expressive, artistic mind."

  

Essentially, if you strip away the hallucinogens and shamanic chanting, these retreats touch on the very basic human needs of presence, human connection, and shedding the impossibly heavy armor of professional identity. The attendees are on the very top of the corporate food chain, and on paper, have all the influence and material security in the world to feel fulfilled.

Yet, they still felt the call of the jungle. Why is that?

We’re transcending the ego, boys

Philosophers have over millennia written about a certain hollowness that seems to be inherent to human life, and different possible cures for it. In the light of these ideas, CEOs being obsessed with unlocking the next realm seems almost consequential.

The traditional view of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has food and shelter at the bottom of the pyramid, with self-actualization as the very last tier to check off.

However, Maslow himself was dissatisfied with his own creation, and before his passing, added another layer: self-transcendence.

Maslow defined self-transcendence as:

The very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.

In other words, the ultimate goal is to transcend the self through understanding our interconnectedness with others (groundbreaking, I know, especially considering Eastern traditions had been saying this from the beginning of time).

I think this is what the tech bros are chasing at these ayahuasca retreats. They have self-actualized, every lower rung of the hierarchy has been crushed, checks on all boxes from safety to achievement. But it’s not enough, is it.

Only through encountering the face of the other, as Emmanuel Levinas would say, facilitated by a total change of environment and identity (and yes, probably a shaman) did they stop seeing their fellow human beings as resources or metrics to optimize.

Transformative hospitality

Transformative hospitality, where people enter as one person and leave as another, is on the rise.

The options for experiencing corporate enlightenment are only proliferating, with the spiritual wellness segment currently valued at $190 billion, and wellness tourism as a broader category projected to reach $2.4 trillion by 2035.

It’s important to note that in order to be transformative, psychedelics or tantric rituals need not be involved. The truly transformational ingredients, at the end of the day, are immersion and connection.

Here are some properties to earmark to experience transformation (maybe try this before cutting your own bangs!), curated by .

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1. Soltara Healing Center, Costa Rica

This one is included in the enlightened-CEO starter pack. Ayahuasca, ocean air, and just enough infrastructure to make ego dissolution feel like a well-run program. You arrive as a founder, you leave texting your team about “heart-led leadership.”

2. Esalen Institute, Monterey, CA

The original California consciousness lab. Hot springs overlooking the Pacific, somatic workshops, and a lineage of people who have been trying to feel their feelings since the 1960s.

3. SHA Wellness Clinic, Mexico

Where biohacking meets linen robes. Blood panels, macrobiotic cuisine, and bowing down to the gods of optimization. In addition to the Riviera Maya property, the longevity galore is also available in Spain. The staff includes an impressive number of doctors and other specialists to give you the best detox of your life.

4. The Ranch, Malibu, CA

You hike, you sweat, you don’t eat very much, and somewhere around day four it starts feeling like clarity. Obviously the property has an infrared sauna, a regenerative garden, a cold plunge, a body composition analysis device, something called a ‘massage village’, and a ginormous gym.

5. Amanpuri, Thailand

Not explicitly “transformational,” but there is space and service so precise it can reorganize your entire nervous system. One of their signature holistic wellness journeys is called ‘Amanpuri Awakening’, which is so enlightened CEO core.

6. Six Senses Douro Valley, Portugal

Wine country meets wellness narrative (red wine is good for your heart I hear…). Forest bathing, spa rituals, etc. for hardcore dnd. The property’s vegetables are home grown and there’s even a pickle workshop.

7. Sensei Lanai, A Four Seasons Resort, Lanai, Hawaii

Larry Ellison’s version of inner peace with data-driven wellness. You stretch, you sip something herbal, you can do aerial yoga and guided garden walks… probably at some point your body is tricked into behaving differently.

8. Azuma Farm Koiwai, Japan

A slow-living cosplay property in rural Japan, by non other than Adrian Zecha, the founder of Aman. Guests are invtited to step into what could even be described as an ascetic rhythm of land, craft, and stillness, where the primary activity is simply being (but obviously expensively). It also happens to be brand spanking new, officially open in April 2026.

A higher realm of hospitality?

It is rare to find a (luxury) property nowadays without some sort of wellness offering. In fact, it would be an almost outrageous thought for a property to not adress well-being in some sort of way.

But looking at these signals (the enlightened CEOs, the democratization of biohacking and longevity practices with the proliferation of wearable tech and the mainstreamification of health optimization), hospitality is reponisitioning itself towards this demand by offering transformation as opposed to just experience to meet the evolving demands.

And it is, indeed, a repositioning and not a reinvention, as great hotels already are places where strangers attend to you with care and where you are temporarily freed from the machinery of your own life.

🔑 With shamanic greetings,

Emma and Michaela

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As you probably know by now, I am, to my core, a philosopher. I enjoy the intangible, the abstract, and spend much of my time in that realm.

However, there are times, when the other side of me takes precedent. She is from the 80s, a shark in Swiss finance who made it to the top of the food chain.

Today’s edition of The Reservation™ is brought to you by her.

Welcome to The Reservation, a tPH letter including long-form analysis and cultural criticism of the hospitality industry and relevant trends.

In this letter: Wall Street is lusting for asset-heavy businesses, AI is coming for global hotel companies, giving the hospitality industry a facelift.

I believe we are currently living, experiencing some version of the dot com bubble. Software companies have disproportionately dominated portfolios and been the golden children of finance bros.

But the winds of change are blowing, my friend, and the direction is favorable for the hospitality industry 🏳️🏳️🏳️

Financial Times recently wrote that Wall Street is experiencing AI anxiety and thus gravitating towards HALO stocks, standing for Heavy Assets, Low Obsolescence.

Business models that are built on human or digital capital (software, consulting, asset management, etc.) are threatened to be abolished, made obsolete, by AI.

Now, suddenly, after asset-light has been all the rage, markets are repricing companies whose value is derived from physical assets that are expensive (and more importantly impossible for AI to) replicate. The big boy category of power grids, pipelines, utilities, transport infrastructure, and critical machinery.1

Since the start of 2025, Goldman’s basket of capital-intensive HALO stocks has outperformed capital-light stocks by roughly 35%.

Considering this, oh boy do I have the pitch for you.

The “asset-heavy” predicament in hospitality

For the past three decades or so, the prevailing wisdom in hospitality, validated by public market performance, was that owning physical assets was a liability. The hottest companies in the industry went asset-light and became brand houses that get recurring franchising and management fees without the burden of actually owning hotels.

Shareholders loooove the asset-light configuration, because it generates higher margins and predictable cash flows. Marriott and Wyndham have been able to scale their businesses to become the world’s biggest hotel companies with this business model.

But maybe we’re starting to outgrow this view. HALO-bros2 are looking for physical spaces, accumulated expertise, location, design, atmosphere, and all the other stuff that AI cannot replicate.

Furthermore, these large hotel companies turned management and distribution platforms are now officially getting the heebie-jeebies from AI, as it’s threatening what’s left of their value proposition.3

Hotels are the definition of heavy assets with low obsolescence. A well-designed property in a prime location with an expert team with seasoned hospitality professionals. Michelin-starred kitchens, the warmth of a human being remembering your name and how you take your coffee. Call me silly but I don’t think that can be automated any time soon (or ever).4

As if to prove my point, Europe’s oldest hotel company Kempinski just made its first hotel acquisition in 55 years. CEO Barbara Muckermann explicitly described it as a "strategic shift towards an asset-heavier approach”. This is because direct ownership leaves no variable of the guest experience into someone else’s hands, which, at the end of the day, is more of a liability than owning some real estate.

Giving the hospitality industry a facelift

The hospitality industry has spent years feeling insecure about its “old economy” status, seen as slow to innovate and even dusty.

Tech companies were celebrated for being asset-light, scalable, and disruptive, the prom queens and kings, hotels were seen as slow, capital-intensive, and unsexy. The companies that managed to make hospitality more tech were rewarded.

But the logic is different now, and being hard to replicate is now where the value is at. The characteristics that made hospitality seem outdated such as physical presence and the impossibility of scaling a feeling are exactly what makes the industry in my opinion more resilient against AI disruption.

Hospitality did not need to become more like tech! The world has seen enough tech bros.

How to attract HALO-bros™ 101

If the HALO thesis outlined above holds, the implications for hospitality are significant.

Here’s how to make sure your hotel business fits the bill

1. Change how you position physical assets. They shouldn’t be (solely) framed as cost centers or liabilities. The building and its location and distinct design are the very reason you cannot be disrupted, thus desirable. You’re welcome.

2. A knowledgeable human team is your most unreplicable asset, which is why you should invest in staff, and their training, and wellbeing. This way they can deliver hospitality properly, and its the hardest asset you can have.

3. We should unsubscribe from asset-light orthodoxy or, at the very least, reexamine its premises. The franchise model has clear financial advantages but physical ownership should not be treated as inherently inferior - because it isn’t! In a HALO world, owning your own hotel might just be the smartest thing you can do.

4. Stop apologizing for the industry! Hospitality is built on human care, physical spaces, and experience that are impossible to replicate with machines. That’s the value proposition and I think it’s time to make it sexy.

I hope this edition of the Reservation did two things, them being 1) instilled some confidence in our industry (we are not slow to innovate, we are ✨HALO✨) and 2) did justice to my hotel finance studies.

I would love to hear your thoughts! Especially if I have any HALO-bros in the audience.

🔑 Emma

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I’m making it a point to begin these letters with the chit chat you would expect when entering the lobby of the grand hotel of the internet that is tPH. How has your stay been so far? Can I bring you something to drink?

The previous edition of The Lobby sparked interesting conversation, and it makes me véry glad to be your cultural concierge. Alas, have a seat and enjoy the following curation of hospitality trends and news.

Welcome to The Lobby_, a roundup of what’s happening in hospitality, served with a point of view.

In this letter: LVMHs death drop, fashion is losing its footing in terms of cultural capital, the timing of Demna’s new Gucci campaign, American diner romanticism, and Nobu’s aggressive venture into branded residences.

• Fashion giant LVMH experiences worst quarter on record. The company’s stock in Q1 fell 28%, something that the company did not experience even under the 2008 financial crisis. CEO Bernard Arnault consequently has a wallet that’s approximately $55.4 billion lighter. If the luxury industry hadn’t felt panic thus far, these results are sure to spark some, as LVMH is kind of treated as the indicator for the temperature of luxury as a whole. Other, converging factors such as supply chain disruptions and consumer spending tightening or migrating elsewhere are not ameliorating the situation. That said, we have just very recently witnessed what has been dubbed the creative director musical chairs, where many of the industry’s legacy maisons appointed a new conductor for the show – and quite possibly, the eventual effects of these refreshments may not yet have manifested.

• Considering the above, it probably goes without saying that the cultural monopoly of fashion is declining as other categories have become significantly hotter. Highsnobiety’s new report mentions ”getting on the guest list for the latest restaurant or bar opening” and ”staying at the hottest IYKYK hotel” as the in-the-know signals of today, as opposed to owning the it bag of the season. We also got some fun stats such as 86% of respondents think being friends with the chef at the hottest restaurant in town is a green flag, as opposed to 14% thinking the same about someone who shows up to dinner with the latest item from a luxury fashion house. In other words, luxury fashion has lost its signaling power, and the reasons are many: Gen Z appreciates everyday items as signals, and the price hikes of luxury goods are oftentimes not backed by substance.

  Another interesting point worth highlighting is that food and beverages have historically already had their signaling power (think caviar and champagne), but the effect is now extending to $20 dollar Erewhon smoothies and imported French butter (I’m looking at my sister who brought home air-vacuumed seaweed butter from Paris). Considering all of this and the disillusionment with luxury houses, the timing of Demna’s new Gucci campaign that is monogrammed to the gods is interesting.

  Still, if we only look at the luxury industry in a silo, the editorial nods at 90s trashy chic and stars Kate Moss - yet another nail in the coffin of the clean girl interested in sleek aesthetics. tPH’s inaugural post dives a bit deeper into why I think hospitality is inheriting the mantle from luxury goods as the ultimate cultural signifier.

• American diner romanticism is on the rise. The Financial Times recently ran a story about the resurgence of the classic American diner. Due to rising operation costs and inflation, many of these institutions have been forced to close down. But like FT stated, it’s not because no one cares for pancakes with bacon and maple syrup anymore (I know I do!). In fact, McKinsey reported that especially GenZ is into sit-down restaurants over other kinds of food experiences. Food quality and portion size are named as the biggest disappointments people face when eating at restaurants, and we all know that the classic American diner does not skimp on portion sizes!

  I think leaning into romanticism and reinventing beloved concepts is a thing we will continue to see across the hospitality industry. Perhaps we’ll see more traditional hotel uniforms or a rebranding of the cigar lounge now that we have buried the clean girl?

• Nobu bets big on branded residences with the pipeline of new properties extending from Mexico to… Manchester? In fact, Nobu is one of the fastest-expanding brands in the space when it comes to non-hotel brands. Also the Manchester plans are real, which is so interesting to me – Nobu is embracing a market that is not traditionally stamped as luxurious.

  Many of these projects are not standalone and will be connected to upcoming Nobu hotels. I have to be honest - I’m still puzzled by the branded residences boom, and I keep wondering a) who are the people living in them and b) what happens to brand perception when the realities of a new build hit? I personally am a fan of the brand, and serendipiously met Chef Nobu himself at his Milan restaurant. And did you know that Robert de Niro is a partner and apparently the aesthetic brain behind Nobu hospitality? Very interesting.

  However, while we know that branded residences can be a great move for brands in the short term (the price premiums are ridiculously high), I think the risk crumbling paint or lackluster amenities can pose to brand perception in the long term needs to be factored in. There is a way to do it well, but how many manage to?

  We are moving away from ultra-polished picture-perfect aesthetics signified by the clean girl. New (but old) classic diners are popping up, and I think even more nostalgic concepts will make their resurgence. Brands that did not have their origins in hotels are betting hard on hospitality, and this is not a surprise considering how the cultural capital of a smoothie can now exceed that of a designer handbag.

  

Sharing what I’m reading, watching, or listening to; hospitality-related or not.

As we all know, hospitality does not just exist in the institutions of hotels and restaurants, but also (and maybe primarily so) in the home. And the unequivocal queen of building an atmosphere and hosting is Martha Stewart. I was around 10 years old when my mom got me a book with a compiled array of Martha’s crafts.

Mila of enlightened me to the existence of the Martha Stewart documentary on Netflix, and it was fantastic. Less about her hosting skills, the focus of the film is on how she has been able reinvent herself again and again in the face of adversity. I love her and long live Martha Stewart.

A hotel that has been on my radar.

My sister-in-law recently told me she booked a two-week meditation and yoga retreat in Thailand. She explained that visiting the country properly has been one of those things that just keeps calling her and she has no clue why, so she finally decided to bite the bullet.

This conversation reminded me that I have my own unfinished business in Thailand, namely, that I need to visit the RAKxa Wellness Clinic.

Avid fans of this Bangkok property include supermodel Jourdan Dunn, and no wonder – RAKxa runs an intense af array of ultra-personalized wellness programs for any purpose, wether you want to detox, live forever, get snatched, or all of the above.

As the wellness and longevity travel economy is becoming an ever-hotter topic, I think the appropriate thing to do would be to fly over and do some tPH coverage. (RAKxa also runs a spa in Florence, maybe I should check that out first during my trip to Italy this summer? Eep!).

That’s all for this edition of The Lobby. Thanks for stopping by.

🔑 Emma

at the time of writing this letter, there are already over a hundred people checked in to tPH, which means it will soon outgrow its boutique status. How bittersweet!

But please, stay and enjoy this fresh-out-the-oven edition of The Reservation.

Welcome to The Reservation, a tPH letter including long-form analysis and cultural criticism of the hospitality industry and relevant trends.

In this letter: why embodying a third space is the perfect strategic move for hotels (and a step-by-step).

At the beginning of 2025, the New York Times asked, ’where have all the third places gone?’.

Third places are indeed disappearing, as much of the time we used to spend connecting has been replaced with (doom)scrolling. The physical places where connecting with friends and strangers alike used to happen have been optimized away, as they were taking space from more profitable uses of square meterage.

What is a third place?

A third place, a term coined in the 1980s by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, is somewhere beyond home and work, where you are not tied to the responsibilities or identity of either. They are signified by their welcoming of both strangers and regulars; environments, where community thrives through conversation and presence.

Perhaps my favorite feature of third places is that they are signified by playfulness. According to Oldenburg, it is precisely the element of playfulness that distinguishes a third place from the laborious chores of home and work.

Us human beings are built for community. As these contexts have become rarer, there is a yearning that I think hotels should lean into, as they have the ability to provide a (third) place for community to emerge.

Here’s why I think hotels are the ultimate third place.

1. Treat everyone like a VIP

Do you know what I think the marker of a really great hotel is? That they treat every person who steps into the building as if they are occupying the most expensive suite on the property (this also applies to restaurants, retail stores, cafés… anywhere where you are given service). This is because when hospitality is good, it doesn’t matter who you are.

I have fond memories of spending an early spring day at the lobby café of Gstaad Palace. We were not staying at the hotel since we were only visiting for the day, but not once did my group and I feel out of place.

We ordered coffee on coffee and fries and more coffee, and I felt like I belonged in the scene, just like everyone else.

An especially charming image I recall is my friends and I engaged in a game of UNO with around ten teenage private school boys seated at the table next to us in their Loro Piana polos (oh to be 15 again).

Now imagine this had gone differently. Instead of being warmly welcomed, picture being ushered out, made to feel less-than a guest. While it’s an unpleasant predicament, it’s also strategically unwise for the hotel.

When a hotel manages to become a place to reside and belong not only for the guest but also the surrounding community, to those passing by, to whomever, it can build loyalty and rapport (and ancillary revenue streams!!!) on a level not reserved to more exclusionary properties.

Sooo in other words (and the strategic takeaway for you industry people): A tell-tale sign that a hotel has become a third space is when locals have found their way in and embrace the property as an extension of their lifestyle.

A special kudos to those hotels that have a wellness club so good (e.g., including a gym) that people in the area get a membership (like this St. George situation in Helsinki).

2. Offer immersion

When you are not at work or home, it’s almost as if you can be someone else.

Hospitality often offers escapism, and many of the best hotels make you feel like you are in another existence altogether, and allow you to exist out of your ordinary context.

For instance, a remote Aman sells silence and ritual, which our society today is largely devoid of. Chateau Marmont, on the other hand, sells the feeling that you may bump into someone interesting (I think this feeling of curated connections is what SoHo House tried to achieve but seems to have issues sustaining on the long term).1

A great limited-service example (because we love good hospitality no matter the segment) is Bob W., that lets guests cosplay locals by – instead of offering breakfast in-house – partnering with local cafés. This way guests naturally branch out in the environment in an entirely different and more immersive way.

Hotels that manage to build a distinct atmosphere that promises something out of the ordinary have guests leaving more fulfilled; and perhaps even changed on some level.

3. Invest in the unreasonable

Playfulness and unreasonableness should be the rule, because what would be more extraordinary than play?

When I think of playfulness, going the extra mile, and pure, unadulterated fun, I think of hotels where the bellboys still wear traditional uniforms, or you are greeted by an usher in a top hat who always calls you madame/sir.

Or even better, staff remember your name and notice details about you. I don’t know how creepy you’ll find this, but once a very esteemed gentleman working as hotel security (at the most exciting Europe hotel opening last year), had seen me doing a silly dance to my sister in the hallway on the CCTV.

He later saw me in the lobby and complimented my dance moves (I personally found this charming! Because why yes thank you sir my dance moves are really good).

More fun and play from the guest perspective ensue when you are able to execute your personal hotel rituals. A staple of mine is to order a chicken caesar salad and a dessert from room service, followed by requesting a wakeup call from concierge with the response being ”gladly, madame” (as you can see, being called madame is very important to me).

The last example, too unreasonable not to share: I remember this one instagram post from circa 2014, when the photos were still square and algorithm was a math term.

Someone (I cannot remember who, but probably someone notable considering the following) had arrived at the Carlyle, only to find their initials embroidered on the pillowcase. This is something the hotel offers its VIPs to this day.

Are you kidding me!!!!!!!! The impact of that is not small, considering I still lend brain power to this gesture of absolutely beyond-the-mark hospitality that did not even happen to me (one day).

In his book Unreasonable Hospitality, Will Guidara explains how his team made creating these memorable moments the very core of their restaurant business, with the humble result of being named the best restaurant in the world. If that’s not enough reason for you to invest some thought into whimsy, then I don’t know what is.

So take it from me (and Will), surprise your guests. Do something silly and unprecedented that will not only stick with them but with whomever they happen to share it with as an anecdote.

So you want to become a third place?

I strongly believe that hotels that are successful embody the concept of a third place will create unprecedented loyalty and become phenomena in their own right.

The demand is strong, and it only takes hotels leaning into their fundamentals for something wonderful (and lucrative) to emerge.

The blueprint, in short, is:

1. Treat everyone like a VIP

2. Offer immersion

3. Invest in the unreasonable

It is, in a way, the very point of hospitality to allow a guest to exist differently for a while. At its best, they are transported to a world of elevation, connection, and whimsical fun.

I cannot think of an industry more suited to create such a universe than hospitality (which is why I love it here so much).

Thank you for reading tPH. I’m grateful to have drawn in a bunch of people who enjoy overthinking hospitality as much as I do.

Yours truly,

🔑 Emma

I’m a hospitality strategist and writer with a philosophy degree I refuse to let go to waste. You can find me on LinkedIn.

I have been going to lymphatic drainage yoga twice a week, and let me tell you, it gets the juices flowing. Here I present to you my thoughts about current industry (adjacent) news that were revealed to me in savasana.

Welcome to The Lobby_, a roundup of what’s happening in hospitality, served with a point of view.

In this letter: engineering is out tastemaking is in, more fashion entrants into hospitality, spot the difference Noma/Hell’s Kitchen, and the Hollywood stamp of approval on hospitality being the last luxury.

• Snapchat CEO says marketing will be more important than engineering. We have moved to a level of maturation with AI that I can personally fw. As a storyteller, a writer, (and a philosopher, if you will), I feel validated by Evan Spiegel’s recent declaration that now that AI (instead of a roomful of super smart people) can build anything, the best story is what will move the needle going forward. We have heard a similar sentiment from OpenAI's Greg Brockman, who said that taste is now the ultimate differentiator. All of this is great news for hospitality, or rather, potentially great news that can only be realized with investing into narrative and emotional resonance and atmosphere that are so intrinsic to the industry. His exact words here.

• Cult brand Chrome Hearts enters hospitality. The luxury label known for emo silver work and trashing the hotel room energy (and just to be clear, we are a fan of this at tPH) has acquired the Surfrider Hotel in Malibu. The design is bespoke and true to the brand, incorporating silver hardware and the brand’s own furniture. I love when so many of my intuitions just keep manifesting. We’re seeing fashion continuing to bet on hospitality, and not just legacy maisons, but what the cool kids are wearing!!! I’m so proud I could shed a tear. Moreover, we have some experiential retail going on with an in-hotel private boutique selling exclusive pieces only available to guests.

  

• Oscars gift bags this year were hospitality galore. This year’s Oscars nominee gift bags were valued at $346,000, of which physical items made up $6,000. The rest is luxury villa stays in Costa Rica, Ibiza, and Finnish Lapland (shoutout to Hideout Villas), a ten-day wellness reset in Sri Lanka, and to my amusement, liposuction and a custom prenuptial agreement. This means that $200,000 of the bag’s value is hospitality experiences. I can tell you two things 1) I need to get nominated at the Oscars pronto 2) the scale tipping so heavily into experiences over products tells us a lot about what is seen as valuable in 2026. Mind you, the recipients are A-list celebrities and the most luxe thing they can be offered is the cultural capital brought about by niche hospitality experiences.

  

• Noma’s René Redzepi exposed for years of physical abuse. The New York Times just published an investigation interviewing 35 former Noma employees documenting physical and verbal abuse by founding chef René Redzepi from 2009 to 2017. One gory story involved Redzepi ordering his entire kitchen staff outside during a dinner rush to witness him assault a sous-chef. The news involve one of the world’s most celebrated restaurants, essentially the poster child for culinary innovation, and has sparked interesting conversations on restaurant-stack (read this, this, and this).

  Hospitality is starting to get more cultural visibility. We have had hit shows like the Bear and White Lotus. But cultural visibility does not come without accountability. When hospitality enters the zeitgeist, there will be scrutiny and questioning. This is good, and consider me sat.

  I wanted to hear the thoughts of my friend who has worked as a chef at Michelin-starred restaurants, and here’s what he said:

  

  What bamboozled me to the core is what he mentioned about the now-deleted comments on Noma’s page where some people are essentially justifying the abuse that takes place in high-end kitchens. One comment said:

  “I feel like a lot of people in the comments have never worked in kitchens, and if they have, not at the level noma used to operate. If you did you would see that all of those actions and decisions made noma what it is. The work is relentless. You need to be strong, mentally and physically. You need to be dedicated. This is the choice you make when being the best, and I respect it.”

  Like my friend said, the sentiment is far from ideal, but at least we have arrived at some collective awareness.

In short, there are many signals from unprecedented directions pointing to hospitality, be it restaurants or hotels, becoming recognized for the cultural capital the industry carries.

That said, with more awareness comes difficult but very necessary conversations. The hospitality industry is for instance notorious for high employee turnover rates, and hopefully, some deserved public scrutiny will finally instigate some real change.

Phewww that was a bit heavy. I think we need to wind down by the nightstand.

Sharing what I'm reading, watching, or listening to; hospitality-related or not.

In the last edition of the Lobby, I did a roundup of my some hospitality literature that I have on my to-be-read list. But I have taken a little detour to familiarize myself with Rick Rubin’s work. Rubin has worked with (and this is not an exaggeration) everyone in the music industry, from Paul McCartney to Jay-Z.

His 2023 book titled The Creative Act is a collection of his musings about creativity, how it’s innate to being human, how we are not really owners of our ideas but vessels for a greater force that is the actual source of everything we create.

So I have highlighted the hell out of this book because I feel like it’s so metaphorical to hospitality. You know how great service can feel almost magical, creating an atmosphere of its own? I think that happens when hospitality professionals tap into a source larger than themselves; they are in service of something greater than this one person alone.

If you have read the book I would love to hear your thoughts.

A hotel that has been on my radar.

I’ve been on an NYC boutique hotel rampage, as I’m doing research for a Q3 press trip. If you haven’t heard of the Bowery Hotel, you’re welcome.

More exclusive coverage coming later this year, but I couldn’t help but to already lean into the vibes.

That’s all for this edition of The Lobby. Thanks for stopping by.

🔑 Emma

You know how many hotel experiences fall flat? The rooms may be beautiful, even kind of contemporary, but the experience feels hollow. You never quite forget that this is a hotel and last night there was someone else occupying this room. And tomorrow it will be someone else.

But then again, there are the hotels that could only be described as transcendent. And I have found that the common denominator in these hotels is that they are able to make you feel like home.

I’m on a mission to crack the code behind hospitality that makes you forget the outside world. Turndown Service™ is a tPH letter dedicated exactly to this endeavor of mine.

And while we will be discussing the finer, softer, experiential things, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a methodology. We are approaching hospitality in a phenomenological way, meaning that we believe we can arrive at truth through lived experience.

This means we will also take a look at what some of the most chic properties on earth are doing, and dissect what makes them so great.

So voilà, I hope you are tucked in nicely (this is turndown service, after all), and ready to dive into why I think dwelling is the secret sauce to home-like hospitality.

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: Heidegger on dwelling, chilling at Massimo Bottura’s summer house, and the only hotel in Stockholm

An extremely short history of the origins of the hotel

The word “hotel” comes from the French hôtel, which originally meant a large private residence; a townhouse for aristocrats and their guests. Many hotels today have omitted this part of the history of the industry from their modus operandi, and focus on offering a run-of-the-mill guest experience that’s neither memorable nor personal.

But the hotels that never did away with the private residence sentiment are some of the best in the world, and the reason is quite simple: they are able to offer guests a dwelling.

What is dwelling?

“To dwell means to belong to a given place.”

- Martin Heidegger

German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) wrote that to dwell is not simply to occupy a space, but to be at peace in it, and to be “spared” from hurry and harshness.

He distinguished between, on one hand, buildings we merely use, and on the other, places where we truly reside. Dwelling indicates lingering presence and the opposite of hurry, something that Heidegger argues to be central to the human condition.

But how often do we dwell in our day-to-day? Perhaps our busy lives keep us in a perpetual state of passing through, which is the antithesis of this desired state.

Hotels have always promised escape, but the ones that leave the strongest impressions offer a place to dwell, creating a sense of belonging.

Now if you allow me, I’ll take you on a small journey to two of my favorite hotels dwellings. (These two are so good I borderline want to gatekeep them).

Dwelling #1: Casa Maria Luigia, Modena, Italy

Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura’s summer estate slash boutique hotel, Casa Maria Luigia, is a masterclass in authentic hospitality.

There are options of rooms… or you could stay in Bottura’s literal summer house. Sure!

The house features a few bedrooms, a pool, a fridge stocked with little amuse-bouches and, my favorite, Chef Bottura’s vinyl collection. It’s like he personally invited you, and just happens to be running errands at the moment and will return at any time to discuss music and what’s for dinner.

Naturally, dinner and breakfast are à la Bottura featuring many of his world-famous dishes, such as the Parmigiano a million ways plate.

If you’re lucky (and I was!), the man himself may pop up out of the kitchen mid-dinner. This induced a mild freakout in yours truly and a major one in my sister, who proceeded to cry into her food.

I can hardly think of a more intimate hospitality experience than inviting guests into your literal home. I’m already a fan of small family-run bed and breakfasts where heart and soul are poured into every detail. Casa Maria Luigia was like that but on steroids.

Dwelling becomes simple and intuitive when you are trusted with personal collections from art to music to furniture, in a space that hints at a person’s real interests and everyday life.

Dwelling #2: Ett Hem, Stockholm, Sweden

A Scandi example is Ett Hem, a Stockholm hotel made up of three private houses, where you get to cosplay a Swede with extremely good taste.

Guests are made to feel they belong by being treated as friends and family, and the chefs create in the open kitchen right in front of you, from local produce.

Everything from linen to art pieces has been curated to the max, with full-sized products for an entire skincare regimen in your bathroom, which makes it feel like you’re sleeping over at a gallant friend’s house who just really loves the brand Mantle.

In a way, details like beauty products in the size you would find them at home and an abundance of gathering areas create opportunities to dwell. We move differently in spaces where we feel at home than in unfamiliar ones. Full-sized skincare is something that one associates with home, not with a hotel stay.

TLDR: everything simply feels purposeful and a feeling of dwelling can be induced through detail.

Why your hotel should be dwell-maxxing

We spend so much of life in transit. Passing through airports, meetings, cities, and rarely do we stop long enough to actually be somewhere.

Hotels could be yet another place we pass through, and many of them are. Check in, sleep, check out, forget, repeat.

But hotels that are crafted for dwelling and understand the deeper intimacy of hospitality offer an increasingly rare encouragement to stop, linger a little longer over breakfast, play a record, and just exist.

Casa Maria Luigia and Ett Hem are fantastic examples of how a hotel can, through intentionally creating a home-like environment, become a universe of its own where guests get to live differently (completely oblivious to the fact that there was someone before them, and there will be someone after them).

Heidegger and I would call that dwelling.

Thank you for taking the journey with me, dear guest. You are in great company here at tPH.

Yours truly,

🔑 Emma

the time has come for the first edition of tPH’s hospitality news roundup. In these letters, I share the industry knowledge that has piqued my curiosity as well as other topics of interest.

My goal is to not only relay the information but to add a fresh point of view courtesy of yours truly.

Let’s dive in!

Welcome to The Lobby_, a roundup of what’s happening in hospitality, served with a point of view.

In this letter: Soho House goes private (again), Louis Vuitton says no to hotels, Marriott and Hilton prepare for their AI villain arc, and Aman sets sail.

• Soho House has been taken private after a five-year, not-so wildly successful stint on the stock market. The share price towards the end was significantly below its IPO valuation. The $2.7 billion deal almost fell through but was saved by a last-minute alternative financing of $200 million. One investor is none other than Ashton Kutcher. The private members club has never been profitable despite a growing number of members, and the question remains if the model lends itself to turning a profit to begin with. More members reduces the core value prop of a curated community. I will be following the company under its new private ownership closely to see if they have noticed an opportunity for a turnaround that at least I have missed. Read more here, here and here.

  

• There will not be a Louis Vuitton hotel after all. Mr. Arnault himself came out to say that “Vuitton’s not going to go into the hotel business”. The speculation has been abundant, but the LVMH CEO assures that the brand wants to retain its focus and not diversify. Too bad I SWOT analyzed the hypothetical property for EHL Insights literally a week before Arnault squashed the rumors and my LinkedIn still seems to be flooded with people who are convinced that the hotel is, in fact, happening. While there may not be an actual LV hotel, the brand’s stores have leaned into the aesthetic lately. Immersive retail galore!

• Marriott and Hilton are getting scared AF about AI. As we know, direct bookings are very important for hotels, as other booking channels such as OTAs can get very expensive and squeeze margins into oblivion. Now some activity has been sniffed in the legal teams of global chains regarding the risks AI could pose for the companies’ cost of sales. While AI is not charging commissions for bookings made through the platform (yet), it does have the potential to become an OTA final boss making Booking.com and Expedia look like Bowser Jr. in contrast.

• Serene and silent at sea? Aman is one of the latest luxury hospitality brands to set sail. Loyal to its core, the marketing edge seems to be a) exclusivity with the boat only hosting 47 suites, and b) the unparalleled level of service the brand is known for. The vessel is named Amangati (surely, they must soon run out of names to put after Aman), and its itinerary traces the shores of the Mediterranean. The design SCREAMS whispers Aman. A Reddit user articulated what I didn’t dare to: “tbh I would spend the money on a smaller boat for a private charter rather than spend so much for a glorified cruise ship. Who is this even for?”. But the increasing amount of brands rushing into this space, including the Orient Express, there must be serious trust in the model. And please, I would love my skepticism to be proved wrong!

The overarching theme seems to be legacy brands figuring out what they want to be (and whether they can afford to stay as they are). More on that soon. But first, what’s on my nightstand!

A new section! Here I'll share what I'm reading, watching, or listening to; hospitality-related or not. Consider it a peek into what's shaping my thinking.

I’m currently reading Setting the Table by Danny Meyer. I’m slowly but surely working my way through the must reads of hospitality literature (which I feel like there are not that many of? Please correct me if I’m wrong!!!).

After finishing the cult classic Unreasonable Hospitality, I moved on to the adjacent work by Meyer, the former boss of Will Guidara and the brain behind the gift to the world that is Shake Shack (among other very esteemed and iconic dining establishments of his).

I love reading hospitality leaders’ accounts of their successes and failures and what they think makes human care so important.

Other works on my list include:

• Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

• Hospitality Vibes by Maggie Chen

• Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp

• Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans

• The New Gold Standard by Joseph a Michelli

• Excellence Wins by Horst Schulzs

Any favorites of yours that I missed? Let me know!

A hotel that has been on my radar.

The premium global affairs and lifestyle magazine Monocle is opening a townhouse in collaboration with Zürich’s iconic boutique hotel Widder, taking a step deeper into hospitality following their successful concept cafés.

The magazine’s ethos of curation and quality lends itself beautiful to lived space that’s filled with bespoke furniture from brands such as Moebe and Olaio. The radio is naturally turned to the wavelengths of Monocle radio and guests enjoy daily housekeeping, round the clock concierge and private dining experiences. Read more.

That’s all for this edition of The Lobby. Thanks for stopping by.

🔑 Emma

Welcome to The Reservation, a tPH letter including long-form analysis and cultural criticism of the hospitality industry and relevant trends.

In this letter: luxury has become fast fashion and hospitality may be the only thing that can save its facade.

It was a post-pilates Saturday morning, when my friend Rebecca and I discussed how luxury goods are dying a public and painstaking death.

The industry increasingly resembles fast fashion. Rapid expansion has led to oversaturation, brands have continued to rely on price increases to maintain top-line performance, while repeatedly disappointing their clients in terms of quality and ethics.

Up to 40% of luxury goods were sold on discount in 2025, resulting in a 15-year low in industry margins (ouch).

There is a collective disillusionment as the gap between the fantasy being sold and what you actually get keeps widening. And this goes beyond the wealthy, as consumers across all tax brackets are getting sick of stuff, of overconsumption, and constant overstimulation.

Discretionary spending has shifted towards travel and wellness. Swiss private bank Julius Bär notes that:

“Affluent consumers in many regions are increasingly choosing luxury experiences instead of purchasing premium products, underlining that the growth of the experience economy can be at the expense of the luxury goods sector”.

This is skewed causality. I think it is precisely because luxury goods have in many ways become such a sloppy letdown that people are turning to experiences, where the value is immediate and demonstrable.

What cannot be replaced

In an age of ultra-connectivity and AI slop, where people are starved of genuine attention and third places to make connections, I believe human care will only become more valuable.

We have already seen this with brands including Loewe and Hermès demonstrating human craftsmanship in their marketing.

But I think the industry that has the chance to be the epitome of human care and attention, is hospitality. The very essence of the value proposition is that you are cared for and witnessed. Raffles recently leaned into this with their The Butler Did It campaign, highlighting the “accomplished savoir faire” of their service staff.

This is especially the case in luxury hospitality, where personalized service, i.e., having your preferences be witnessed by another human being and consequently having them catered for, will in my opinion become even more valuable and coveted.

Hospitality is a witnessed presence, and human touch and attention are becoming the ultimate luxury differentiator. It cannot be truly replaced nor degraded.

For many, time is the most valuable thing. Conveying to a guest that time has been invested in them through attention and care is what makes great hospitality what it is.

Will anything beat someone anticipating your needs, working to meet you as a human being?

The takeaways (a.k.a the section to look forward to in the Reservation)

The point of today’s letter, in a nutshell, is that hotels and hospitality should center themselves around witnessing and attention.

This should absolutely not be the mission of luxury hotels alone. The philosophy of hospitality can likewise exist in a limited-service hotel (or any service business for that matter but we’ll get to that in the future).

Conversely, this essence can be completely absent in a full-service luxury hotel buzzing with an impeccable staff-to-guest ratio. Hotels raising rates without differentiation while mistreating employees is just as embarrassing as luxury brands producing bags in sweatshops and selling them at 90% margins.

So voilà, the blueprint to success (or how not to become bracketed with Zara):

1. Centralize human attention and make witnessing the guest or client the utmost priority

2. Make sure your employees feel good enough to be able to offer said attention

3. Steps 1 and 2 apply to you regardless of star rating or segment or industry. No excuses.

The hospitality industry is currently being offered the mantle long held by the luxury goods industry. To be deserving of it requires a commitment to quality and the demonstration of genuine human care placed on the guest or client.

You have just witnessed a birth

How have you enjoyed your stay so far? You just made it to the end of the very first edition of the Philosophy of Hospitality (tPH between us friends ;))

The industry is undergoing a great shift, and I want to be part of documenting and starting the conversation around it. This is especially given that there are still very few representatives of younger generations entering the industry who are voicing their opinions.

Hospitality is less like an industry and more a tradition with a dizzyingly long history. That is cultural capital that is impossible to replicate and something that will immensely appreciate in value as the world continues to become more automated, distracted, and impersonal.

Thanks for being here,

🔑 Emma