The design of Virgin Hotels Chicago has been widely praised for bringing something new to the industry and offering guests an alternative to the traditional hotel experience. But where do the ideas for a new business come from? We caught up with CEO Raul Leal to find out more about how their ideas were conceived and developed...
Jason Pomeranc was bred to be a hotelier. He attended university in New York City before joining his father’s real estate firm, which later opened the 60 Thompson hotel in 2001. Pomeranc led what was then one of first trail-blazing boutique hotel groups for the next decade before merging the 12-property brand with the Joie de Vivre chain to create Commune Hotels & Resorts.
How much is that boutique hotel in the window? Well, it's around $430 million. Yes, that's the price InterContinental Hotels Group (one of the biggest hotel companies in the world) paid to acquire Kimpton Hotels, the original boutique hotel group, which includes 62 hotels and 71 hotel-based restaurants and bars. The number might sound big, but in reality it's a drop in the IHG ocean of hotel brands and assets.
Commune Hotels and Resorts is a relatively new hotel company, which formed in 2011 when boutique hotel brand Joie de Vivre merged with luxury lifestyle brand Thompson Hotels. In addition to the two founding brands, Commune recently launched tommie, a value-oriented that combined the luxury and bespoke lifestyle elements of the former brands. Niki Leondakis, the company’s current CEO and one of very few women leading a hotel corporation, joined Commune in 2012 after serving as COO and president of Kimpton Hotels & Restuaurant. Her experience puts her in the center of the lifestyle hotel sector whose growth was evidenced by IHG’s $430 million offer to acquire Kimpton last week.
When it comes to designing hotel guest rooms for the modern-day business traveler, one piece of furniture is always a matter of debate: the desk. "The Millennial traveler doesn't seem to need to put everything on the desk," says Nigel Hatcher, senior director of Interior Design for Marriott International.
Before he was in the hotel business, Ian Schrager owned the legendary Studio 54 with the late Steve Rubell, a club known for having the most celebrated, the most moneyed, the most glitter-spackled and the most fearless clientele in their ingestion of illegal substances anywhere in the world. Since then, Mr. Schrager went from one form of hospitality to another; he became something of a father figure to the boutique hotel before the concept caught on.
As hotel impresario Ian Schrager and Marriott International Inc. were putting the finishing touches on their venture’s new Miami property, a dispute broke out over what to do with some extra basement space. Marriott executives suggested conference rooms. Mr. Schrager, co-founder of the glitzy 1970s disco Studio 54, had something else in mind: a backlit ice-skating rink with bikini-clad women gliding across the ice, with floor-to-ceiling windows to attract passersby. Mr. Schrager’s vision for the new high-end hotel brand Edition won out, as it usually has in the often-erratic collaboration between tradition-minded Marriott and the man credited with starting the boutique-hotel craze.
Boutique hotels have been sprouting up across the Las Vegas Valley and there could be more soon. Chris Komanowski, vice president of commercial real estate brokerage CBRE, said the rise in boutique hotels could mark a new trend. “Our market is underserved and people see an opportunity,” Komanowski said. “In the last 10 to 15 years, the boutique space really became a viable segment that a lot of the Marriotts and Hiltons realized they want to be in that growth arena as well.”
NEW YORK, NY, November 17, 2014 — The International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show® (IHMRS) has announced the winners for the 34th annual Gold Key Awards for Excellence in Hospitality Design. A record number of entries of over 280 international projects were considered by a team of nine prominent judges for these coveted awards, which recognize outstanding hospitality design worldwide for properties completed or renovated from March 1, 2013 to March 1, 2014.
Microhotels are hot in Manhattan, and operators hope they will play in the rest of America, too. Emerging hotel brands like Yotel, the Pod Hotel and CitizenM Hotels have been a big hit with travelers to global capitals like New York in recent years, stacking up hundreds of scale-downed rooms, focusing on design and turning lobbies into social hubs.
Emerald Expositions announces the launch of Design Americas, a new show catering to the hospitality, contract, kitchen and bath and retail design markets. Developed as a response to the evolving world of design, the show will serve as the definitive destination for designers looking to explore the latest products and services either from a respective sector or across the entire design industry.
The hospitality world was never the same after André Balazs converted the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood in the early '90s and opened the Mercer Hotel in New York in 1998. When he launched his first Standard Hotel, that same year, he pioneered the idea of super cool affordable hotels, which has now taken the world by storm.
The hospitality industry's top boutique, lifestyle and luxury brand executives and independent property owners are gathering in Las Vegas September 17-19 at the newly opened SLS Hotel & Casino. The symposium's content is designed to inspire the niche industry sector attendees with panel discussions that are new, inventive concepts and in some cases, groundbreaking ideas that titillate the imagination.
When I’m traveling on business, as I have been the past two weeks, I require the following in a hotel: a comfortable bed, a bathroom, reliable Wi-Fi, adequate space to work and a good location. And there have been times when reliable Wi-Fi was at the top of that list. The Marriott Courtyard Iberville on the edge of New Orleans’ French Quarter, where I stayed for 13 nights, fit those requirements. I had a small suite with a couch and a desk, and I was as comfortable as anyone could reasonably expect to be when living in a big, busy hotel for two weeks. My room rate was about $200 a night.
Brooklyn, NY -- Brooklyn neighborhood names. A classic cassette tape. Skateboards. Laser cut imagery and patterns of vintage Brooklyn adorn the wooden headboards at NU Hotel Brooklyn as part of HHM's recent $1.5 million guestroom renovation. The 93 rooms of this Independent Collection (IC) boutique New York hotel in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn were updated to showcase a sophisticated cool décor with retro hints.
W Hotels Worldwide today announced the second wave of renovation projects as part of the brand's plan to reinvigorate its iconic North American portfolio. The aggressive strategy focuses on further enhancing the W portfolio and $100 million investment of the brand and its ownership groups with cutting-edge updates to public spaces, new signature bar and restaurant concepts, and stylish guestroom updates in key markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Mexico City and Washington DC.
It must have been something Niki Leondakis saw or tasted or heard as a young girl flitting about her Greek grandma's restaurant that first spawned her love for the hospitality industry. Whatever it was that struck her about Charlie's Diner, celebrated as the first stainless-steel eatery in Western Massachusetts, it stuck. Today, as CEO of San Francisco-based Commune Hotels & Resorts, Leondakis has become one of the country's most prominent women in the leisure and travel business. And with 38 hotels in three countries already under her command, including the oh-so-hip Joie de Vivre chain of boutique inns, Leondakis is about to cut the ribbon at Palo Alto's sleek new Epiphany Hotel. She says the sexy tech-inspired luxury property practically oozes the Silicon Valley zeitgeist.
Boasting a trade fair floor 50 percent larger than last year, Boutique Design New York (BDNY) provided 5,190 design professionals, hospitality owners and operators, and purchasing executives with a look at the latest products and trends in hospitality design, November 10-11, 2013, at New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
Mandarin Oriental, New Yorkis delighted to announce the launch of its newest signature suite, Suite 5000. Located on the hotel's 50th floor, the spacious 3,300 square-foot suite blends the city's finest art, fashion and design, with an array of exclusive and exciting partnerships. Upon booking, Guest Relations will customize each stay from start to finish.
Jason Pomeranc, hotelier and co-founder of Thompson Hotels, announced the launch of hotel brand Sixty Hotels, a part of his new hospitality company, Sixty Collective. Partnering with his brothersMichael and Larry Pomeranc and long-time collaborator and former Commune Hotels CEOStephen Brandman, Pomeranc has assembled a team of talented professionals to realize his next incarnation for the travel industry.