Gretel Kutan
Luxury Hospitality Projects
EMEA · Globally Flexible
Issue I · MMXXVI · Industry Notes
I.

The Fifth Season Problem

By the fifth year, the venue that opened with conviction is being run by a calendar. The decline is invisible in the P&L for longer than it should be, and by the time it is visible, the venue is already losing the guests it cannot afford to lose.

II.

The Judgement Gap

The deepest reason senior leadership in luxury hospitality is structurally under-equipped for the next decade is not technological. It is a question of judgement, and most groups do not have anyone in the seat where that judgement is meant to sit.

III.

Idea Is Not Vision

Most luxury hospitality projects that disappoint do not fail in execution. They fail earlier, in a confusion that almost no one in the room is willing to name.

IV.

The Group That Was Never Designed

Most luxury hospitality groups did not design themselves. They accumulated. The infrastructure underneath them was never built for the business they have become, and the cost of that is absorbed quietly, year after year, into the marketing budget of every property in the portfolio.

V.

The Marbella Problem

Marbella has moved into the ultra-luxury market, and the pricing has moved with it. The people who can actually run an operation at that level have not arrived in the same numbers. That gap shows up in the guest experience, and the guest paying ultra-luxury rates notices.

Marbella coastline beneath La Concha, sepia-treated