Happy Friday.

Summer holiday content is in full force, and thanks to a handful of hospitality brands, you’ll be seeing a lot more of these “yacht cruises” on your feed or in the Med. Today’s letter will be the first of many that attempt to understand the yacht cruise business. If you have any questions, feel free to share by direct replying to this email.

Best,

Nadine

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

In today’s newsletter:

• Everyone asks me whether yacht cruises will work. The better question at this stage is: what is the true guest acquisition cost? Erina Pindar, COO of $1B luxury travel advisory shares some interesting data points on 2026 booking patterns.

• Two C-suite Aman alumni are now running yacht cruise businesses with opposite playbooks. One holds rate and builds six ships, while the other stays under 100 suites and unbundles the fare. Both told me how they're thinking about it.

• A ship is a depreciating asset with no land underneath it. So what are Four Seasons, Aman, and Orient Express actually underwriting when they put their names on hulls?

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

Wood Fire Cooking and Open Kitchens - F&B Consultant

Stefano Gallizio cut his teeth cooking over open fire under Francis Mallmann in the south of France before taking that philosophy around the world. He went on to help build Osborn’s Fire Kitchen in Australia’s Southern Highlands, widely credited as Australia’s first outdoor fire-cooking restaurant, and later served as Executive Chef at Ember in Byron Bay.

His work sits at the intersection of sensory experience and operational discipline: the kind of food that guests can see being made and remember long after the meal. He now partners with hospitality venues, wineries, hotel groups, and investors to develop restaurant concepts from the ground up.

If you are building a restaurant concept that highlights wood fire cooking and are seeking advice, reach him at stefanoggallizio@gmail.com.

The Stanza is considering an expansion to the Middle East and Asia. If you’re interested in contributing, I’d love to hear from you. The ideal person is:

• Based in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, or Abu Dhabi (at least part time)

• Has institutional hotel real estate / development / operational experience and therefore credibility and an insider’s view on the industry

• Understands the voice and perspective of The Stanza

Submit your interest here. Due to the volume of inquiries, only those that satisfy all three points above will be contacted.

Current listings:

• For Weekly Rent: Villa Epavli, Corfu, Greece (July availability, from €40,000 per week including staff)

• For Weekly Rent: Villa Bagatelle, St. Tropez (From €176,000 per week including staff)

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood $6M

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

Pages from the guest book of Munich innkeeper Hedwig Sonnenschmidt include illustrations from the artists of Simplicissimus, a German weekly magazine (1896–1967) that published political and social satire. The guestbook was auctioned today at Karl & Faber (Lot 738).

“What’s up with yacht cruises?”

There’s a lot of chatter about the yacht cruise business, and lately I’ve been fielding the same question from a lot of people around the viability of this emerging category: “Do you think they’ll work?”

The way I like to look at that question is more: what problem are they solving, and where is the demand coming from? What is the true “guest acquisition cost” for these brands, as the type of person who goes on these cruises is likely spending money that would otherwise be allocated for hotels on a yacht cruise? And as for the investor’s perspective: what’s the long term value creation opportunity? Hotels are on land, which is a finite resource. Typically, a lot of value in hotels comes from the real estate itself for this reason (note: see my previous newsletter on irreplaceable assets). If you can, in theory, build a million luxury cruise ships, and if ships are by definition, depreciating assets, how do you underwrite the terminal value? Or are these ships seen as tax efficient cash flowing assets?

The comp set

Five luxury brands, four of which are hotel operators, now have ships in the water or under construction, and the fleet sizes tell you a lot about each one's bet:

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Happy Friday. Today’s letter is a continuation of previous letters: an exploration into less considered aspects of the hospitality business that have impactful potential. It’s also a very Italian letter! As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to direct reply to this email.

If you’re in Monaco for F1 this weekend and need help booking last minute reservations, download Dorsia using code THESTANZA. You can also get access to fun events such as the HEAVENSAKE party.

Best,

N

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

The latest podcast episode with Anne-Laure Ollagnon, CEO of Airelles, can be found here. Next podcast episode will be published next week.

In today’s newsletter:

• Marie-Louise Sciò’s philosophy on hotel retail is a big part of the reason why Il Pellicano is consistently booked through the summer season

• Carolina Fumagalli is building a new hotel retail operating model that appeals to sophisticated travelers seeking to experience niche Italian craftsmanship

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

The Stanza is considering an expansion to the Middle East and Asia. If you’re interested in contributing, I’d love to hear from you. The ideal person is:

• Based in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, or Abu Dhabi (at least part time)

• Has institutional hotel real estate / development / operational experience and therefore credibility and an insider’s view on the industry

• Understands the voice and perspective of The Stanza

Submit your interest here. Due to the volume of inquiries, only those that satisfy all three points above will be contacted.

Current listings:

• For Weekly Rent: Villa Epavli, Corfu, Greece (July availability, from €40,000 per week including staff)

• For Weekly Rent: Villa Bagatelle, St. Tropez (From €176,000 per week including staff)

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood $6M

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

What’s the point of hotel retail?

When you think of hotel retail, what comes to mind?

From my personal experience, most hotel retail I’ve seen feels random. Traditionally, hotel retail has been categorized as ancillary revenue. And while that might always technically be the case, the point won’t be about generating substantial revenue from hotel retail (although I’ve seen examples that completely disprove that notion). It’ll be about emphasizing who your hotel is for.

The hotels with the strongest positioning are not selling rooms, because rooms are a commodity. They’re selling proximity to a world the guest wants to associate themselves with, and the rooms are the venue in which the association gets transacted. Typically, travelers and operators have focused on the most obvious outer-facing aspect of world-building, which is the architecture and interior design of a hotel. However, in recent years, smart operators have been increasingly focused on retail as a lever in the exercise of world-building both as a means of expression and of differentiation. As hospitality grows more competitive, the effectiveness of the “world” in selling rooms will be priced into brand value, and therefore hotel retail will transition from an afterthought into a powerful tool to help execute said exercise.

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Happy Saturday. Curious to hear what you all think on the topic of guest curation. I welcome your thoughts - just reply to this email directly.

Best,

N

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

The latest podcast episode with Anne-Laure Ollagnon, CEO of Airelles, can be found here.

In today’s newsletter:

• If a members club can curate its social environment through a membership process, what’s the hotel industry’s equivalent mechanism, and why is almost nobody using it?

• Why the most underrated variable in the guest experience has nothing to do with service, design, or F&B — and everything to do with a specific decision made before the hotel opened.

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

For Weekly Rent: Villa Epavli, Corfu, Greece

Villa Epavli features direct + private sea access, an infinity pool overlooking the sea, 6 bedrooms (sleeps 12), and comes with a private chef and villa manager. Availability below:

1 - 15 June: €12,500 per week (last minute deal)

6 - 13 July: €40,000 per week

20 - 27 July: €45,000 per week

For more information & to book, email Sabaya: info@isaya.co.uk

For Weekly Rent: Villa Bagatelle, St. Tropez

This beautiful estate spans 4.7 acres comprising 5 independent villas, a padel & tennis court, Technogym fitness studio, sauna, hammam, a cold plunge, an outdoor pool, cinema room, and a panoramic view of the sea. Villa Bagatelle is conveniently located by Pampelonne Beach and St. Tropez town center.

Rates start at €176,000 per week (1 week minimum stay)

For more information & to book, email Sabaya: info@isaya.co.uk

Thank you for your interest in contributing to The Stanza’s potential expansion to Asia and the Middle East. The ideal person is:

• Based in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, or Abu Dhabi (at least part time)

• Has institutional hotel real estate / development / operational experience and therefore credibility and an insider’s view on the industry

• Understands the voice and perspective of The Stanza

Submit your interest here. Due to the volume of inquiries, only those that satisfy all three points above will be contacted.

Current listings:

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood $6M

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

Jacques Garcia acquired the Château du Champ de Bataille in Normandy and undertook a lengthy and costly renovation to revive a masterpiece. Unfortunately it’s not a hotel nor can you rent it for an overnight stay, but it is absolute perfection. Photo from AD France.

The true barometer of hotel perception is not industry press nor opinions from people who do hospitality professionally, but the opinions of guests who have stayed at these hotels and are well-traveled and incredibly savvy. In my recent conversations with friends whom I’d categorize as such, the most interesting question when relaying feedback was always less about service, design, or F&B, but increasingly: “what was the crowd like?” If the answer was negative, I’ve noticed that it disproportionately tainted the person’s view of their experience, regardless of whether or not the other elements of the experience were good. By now, the baseline for any hotel charging €2,000+ ADRs is functional and beautiful design, excellent service, and edible food. Most of the time, these hotels tend to be smaller in key size or have several well-appointed common spaces, and so if the crowd is uninteresting or worse, gauche and rude, it’ll be quite clear and will impact the overall guest experience.

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As the age of information accelerates, we are constantly inundated with content from all directions. The amount of information that has been made accessible by the internet and social media is truly incredible, but I also think it’s important to have a critical eye on the media we consume.

I frequently get asked which writers in the travel space I follow regularly, and here’s my criteria for what I allow in my media diet:

• Originality and uniqueness: The original is always better than the dupe.

• Depth and credibility: I want to know the how and the why, not just the what.

• Devotion to a mastery of their craft: I want to learn from those who strive for excellence.

That being said, here are my current picks:

has been writing about travel (and the business of) for over a decade. He has a sharp column on Skift that often parallels what I write about on The Stanza. His work is read by C-suite at major hospitality groups and I appreciate the honesty and quality of analysis in his writing.

David Prior has an incredible eye for experiences and is able to translate that into beautiful, creative storytelling. I love opening his newsletters to see what destinations are on his radar, and how he would piece together a memorable itinerary.

’s taste particularly resonates with me, and that could be because she started in fashion media. I appreciate how she articulates why hotels and destinations are worth visiting with clarity.

might know every single cool or interesting hotel in Italy. The depth of her knowledge and passion for Italy is truly astounding.

doesn’t need much of an introduction amongst hospitality industry professionals and enthusiasts — she’s been a travel editor at FT HTSI for a while. What makes her work stand out is her unique editorial perspective on places that are less obvious, and her taste which has been developed through lived experience traveling to the places she writes about.

Best,

N

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

The latest podcast episode with Anne-Laure Ollagnon, CEO of Airelles, can be found here.

In today’s newsletter:

• €2,000 is the new €800. New supply is coming. And the ultra-luxury guest has a longer memory than the industry gives them credit for. This week, a direct question for every hotel owner and operator reading this: are you doing hotels, or doing hospitality? The difference matters more now than it ever has.

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

• I’m thinking of expanding The Stanza to Asia and/or the Middle East. If you are based in either of these regions, passionate about hospitality, and have an insider’s view, please reply to this email and introduce yourself. Institutional investing experience is a must.

• I’m opening the Classifieds section to share sales of properties and fundraises on a complimentary basis for deals that make absolute sense for The Stanza’s audience. No brokers or placement agents please. Happy to share on an anonymous basis as well. Email classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

Current listings:

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood $6M

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

“Doing hotels” vs “doing hospitality”: what’s the difference?

Hotel owners and operators love talking about “emotional connection” in hospitality, but actually very few realize emotional connection is earned after making the guest feel cared for. That feeling is the emotion, not the emotion created from good branding or good design.

I’ve been reflecting on the delta between perception and reality as it relates to the guest experience at all the hotels I’ve stayed at over the last handful of years. I’m arriving at the conclusion that the greater the delta, the more powerful the PR/marketing engine behind it tends to be. We’re currently in a bull market cycle for hotels, but obviously cycles don’t last forever (even if the general trending long-term pattern is up). At the same time, there is a lot of new supply, both coming online this year and in the near-term, €2,000 is the new €800, and there’s a growing sentiment of disappointment at hotels perceived to be “amazing”.

It really boils down to one question: is ownership “doing hotels” or “doing hospitality”? The former is there to clip a fee, earn a yield, or satisfy an ego desire to own a hotel. The latter genuinely cares about making every guest’s stay special and goes the extra mile, even when they don’t have to. You might immediately start thinking of capital structure, as there’s a common notion that family-owned and independent hotels are always better than flagged or private equity-owned. However, I don’t think the capital structure is the number one factor in answering this week’s question.

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Apologies for the late letter, but it’s another long read and hopefully insightful for you.

Thank you for all your notes on this week’s In The Room featuring Tommaso Pacini at La Bottega Collective.

Some important announcements:

• I’m thinking of expanding The Stanza to Asia and/or the Middle East. If you are based in either of these regions, passionate about hospitality, and have an insider’s view, please reply to this email and introduce yourself. Institutional investing experience is a must.

• I’m opening the Classifieds section to share sales of properties and fundraises on a complimentary basis for deals that make absolute sense for The Stanza’s audience. No brokers or placement agents please. Happy to share on an anonymous basis as well. Email classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

Best,

N

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

The latest podcast episode with Anne-Laure Ollagnon, CEO of Airelles, can be found here.

In today’s newsletter:

• Why programming return is one of the most misunderstood aspects of operating a hotel, and how the operators getting it right are measuring it instead

• How strong programming self-selects the guest, and why that is the most underrated tool an owner has for protecting long-term rate integrity

• Andrea Franchini, Global Brand Director of Culture and Entertainment at Edition and W Hotels, on the advice he gives to hotel owners and operators who want to build cultural relevance

• Richard Leuenberger, Managing Director of Badrutt's Palace in St. Moritz, on how intentional programming has supported a more than 300% increase in EBITDA over the last decade

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

Current listings:

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood $6M

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

Does hotel programming move the needle?

As a follow up to last week’s newsletter on relationships as the soft power behind distribution, I’ve been reflecting on my personal experience with another soft power driving hotel retention: programming. It’s a big part of the guest experience that isn’t considered enough by the people capitalizing hotels, even though it can be a powerful tool to create emotional resonance, and therefore drive ADR and room night growth. The flipside is that it requires significant resources to execute thoughtfully.

I had my first horseback riding lesson at Castello di Reschio. It was a sunny, crisp autumn day and I’ll never forget it. The horses at Reschio are purebred Spanish horses; calm, elegant, and majestic. My instructor taught me how to trot in the Teatro Equestre, then we proceeded to ride around the grounds. A couple weeks ago, I shared my horseback riding experience in the gardens of Versailles while staying at Airelles Le Grand Controle. Here, I graduated from the trot to a gallop, and now I’m planning to learn more about my new hobby at these places again, to chase the feeling of being completely in the present moment surrounded by beauty. It’s one example of how hotel programming creates stickiness by facilitating positive memories and emotions. While I know that not every hotel can offer horseback riding lessons, there are versions of programming that can create a parallel stickiness that is accretive to the long-term performance of the hotel.

Now back to the original question: does programming move the needle, and if so, to what magnitude? The answer depends on what kind of hotel you’re operating and what you’re trying to achieve. The mechanism looks different at a lifestyle brand with a global footprint than it does at an independent ultra-luxury property where the hotel's identity is rooted in its destination. I spoke with two operators who sit at opposite ends of that spectrum, and even though there’s an obvious contrast in approach, there’s also a clear fil rouge: the goal of captivating human emotion.

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Tommaso Pacini may have one of the coolest jobs in hospitality. He’s the CEO of La Bottega Collective, which produces and distributes luxury products at most of the world’s best hotels — bathroom kits, robes, slippers, candles, textiles, and everything else that makes the difference between a room and an experience. The next time you stay at a luxury hotel, take a look at the fine print on the bottle of shampoo. Nine times out of ten, it was produced and distributed by La Bottega SpA.

What began in 1981 as a small neighborhood shop founded by Tommaso’s father, Umberto Pacini, has grown into one of the most influential companies in the luxury hospitality world. Today, La Bottega Collective is a group of five specialized subsidiaries operating under one roof — covering beauty essentials, textiles and linens, OS&E, and design consulting — with 20 offices, more than 900 employees, and 15,000 clients across 117 countries. Their portfolio reads like a checklist of the world’s most coveted hotels: Aman, Bulgari, Four Seasons, The Peninsula, Raffles, Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, and Orient Express, among many others.

What sets La Bottega Collective apart from a conventional supplier is the depth and intentionality of what they do, rooted in a distinctly Italian passion for craftsmanship and quality. Founded in the country that invented the concept of il saper fare — the intuitive mastery of making things well — La Bottega Collective brings that sensibility to every object that leaves their ateliers, whether a signature fragrance developed with a master perfumer, a linen woven from an Italian fiber, or a bespoke slipper embroidered with a hotel’s crest. Each piece is designed to communicate something specific about the property it represents. In Tommaso’s world, the amenity set is not a commodity. It is the physical expression of a hotel’s identity, and possibly the only thing a guest takes home.

I’m excited to announce La Bottega Collective as one of the partners for this year’s podcast. It’s a partnership that feels particularly aligned, as Italy is the home of The Stanza and therefore continues to influence The Stanza’s editorial vision and perspective on hospitality.

Your father founded La Bottega Collective in 1981. What was the problem he was solving for at the time, and how has the business he started 45 years ago evolved to what it is today?

Like many Italian companies, it was born through an opportunistic phone call. We were living close to a port, a cruise ship was landing nearby, and someone contacted my father to provide what I consider one of the most luxurious items in the world: toilet paper. Rather than passing the call to a colleague, he said yes, and started supplying amenities for cruise ships. The natural next step was to move into the hotel industry in Italy. That’s where the magic happened.

It’s not a very charming origin story, but it’s the real one, and there’s a wonderful full-circle moment embedded in it. Several years ago we collaborated with Maurizio Cattelan, probably the most controversial Italian artist in the world, to create a Toilet Paper-themed room at the Sixty Hotel in New York. From my father supplying toilet paper to hotels, to a Toilet Paper room in New York thirty years later. All the dots connected.

For readers who may know La Bottega Collective only from their hotel bathroom, the full scope of the group — Beltrami, Vanity Group, Palatino, White Privé — is likely a surprise. How do you describe the platform and the way its pieces work together?

La Bottega Collective connects back to my father’s original dream. The original name was La Bottega dell’Albergo — “the small Italian shop where you can find everything for the hotel.” We started by selling all kinds of items, but over time, particularly after acquiring our cosmetics factory in 2002, we streamlined around beauty as our core business. When I opened the US market in 2008, La Bottega dell’Albergo was unpronounceable, so we shortened it. But with La Bottega Collective, we’ve returned to that original vision: a one-stop platform for guest experience.

Today the Collective is organized around distinct verticals by product category. La Bottega and Vanity Group cover beauty. Beltrami covers textile. Palatino covers accessories. White Privé is a second-line linen brand sitting alongside Beltrami. Beltrami is not a name many people know, but we consider it the jewel of the organization. It’s intentionally small, with an exceptionally high-profile client list: Amangiri in Utah, Passalacqua in Lake Como, the Ritz Paris. We don’t want to scale Beltrami because scaling it would mean losing its exclusivity. That’s exactly why White Privé exists: a more accessible entry point to grow market share without compromising the flagship.

The verticals are structured so there’s no overlap between them. Each item falls into a defined product category, with a go-to-market strategy built around that discipline.

In 2024, Three Hills invested $115M for just under half of the group, and then the Ruffini family came in for a 14.7% stake in September 2025. That is significant conviction from two sophisticated investors with deep hospitality exposure. What were the highlights of your business that catalyzed their investments, and how has their involvement changed your ambitions for the company?

You should really ask them directly! But I can tell you what I believe, having now been through two rounds of institutional investment, the first with Mediobanca back in 2018.

The channel itself is a major factor. Hospitality — what I now call hospitality at large, because it extends well beyond hotels to restaurants, private clubs, safari lodges, golf clubs — is a sector with a compelling growth trajectory. And both investors understand it intimately. Three Hills through investments like Sant Ambroeus; the Ruffini family through Langosteria. They love hospitality, and we speak the same language. That alignment matters enormously when you’re trying to scale while preserving exclusivity, which is the central tension of this business.

The second factor is global footprint. There aren’t many Italian companies that have built one, and investors backing Italian businesses want to see a credible path to international scale.

The third is the platform vision. What I’m building is a luxury one-stop shop for the hotel – pick up a property, turn it upside down, and whatever falls out, we supply it. Their involvement has sharpened our ambitions on the buy-and-build side. Food and beverage, spa, uniforms: these are all verticals we’re actively evaluating for future acquisitions.

Palatino was your third major acquisition within a year. How do you think about the discipline of integration and preserving each company’s distinct identity while building coherence across the platform?

I became friends with the founders of Palatino and Vanity Group before any transaction happened. And I was clear with both of them: if a founder is ready to exit and walk away, we’re not interested. Every acquisition we’ve done has been structured as cash plus equity, so the founder remains invested as a minority shareholder and stays actively involved in a role that fits their strengths. That structure is a signal that they believe in where we’re going, and it’s the best protection against losing what made the company worth acquiring in the first place.

On quality specifically: the philosophy is to preserve what makes each company exceptional and invest heavily in R&D to keep pushing it forward. Take Palatino: the elegance of their detail work is exceptional. But if the same objects appear in every hotel, they become commodities. And once something is a commodity, it competes on price, which is not a business we want to be in. So the challenge with Palatino is constant invention: new guest experience formats, new objects, new collaborations with international designers that keep the work one step ahead.

La Bottega and Vanity Group are different, because licensing multiple brands means we can offer a different face to different clients. We can work with the Ritz-Carlton because we carry Diptyque. The most recent Corinthia Rome opening used Santa Maria Novella. That side of the business is more naturally scalable, though no less deliberate.

How do you decide which brand to pair with which hotel?

There are two approaches: top-down and bottom-up. Some clients come to us with a specific brand in mind, and we evaluate the fit. Others come with no brief, and our brand and marketing team in Milan scouts for the best match alongside our global sales team. We never present a single option because each brand carries a different heritage and speaks to a different type of guest.

Our catalog is essentially a blank notebook. Our salespeople go into client conversations as interviewers first: Where do your guests come from? What is the brand identity you are building? Is the brief rooted in fashion heritage, fragrance, wellness? From there, the right fit becomes clear.

With so many hotel brands licensing the same cosmetics lines, how do you manage exclusivity across clients?

We are almost obsessive about this. You can gain a lot of market share in one year and lose it all the next if you are not disciplined. For certain brands we have formal agreements with international chains that cap volume. When I worked with Thomas Maier at Bottega Veneta, we had a strict limit of five hotel partnerships per year. The go-to-market and marketing strategy behind every brand placement has to be deliberate, and it is not only about which label of shampoo sits in the bathroom. It is about the storytelling layered around the product.

With the Ritz-Carlton NoMad opening in New York, we partnered with Diptyque to install a Bar Parfum inside the hotel, so the product becomes a destination in itself. With Dr. Barbara Sturm, whom I have been in conversation with for nearly four years, we are launching a program this year that moves well beyond the amenity format and shows up across multiple guest touchpoints.

How much does the design of amenities, bathroom products, slippers, textiles, impact the storytelling of a hotel?

These are among the most powerful touchpoints in the entire guest experience, because they are the one thing guests can take with them. They are not going to take the television or the minibar. Amenities are the memorabilia, and when they are done well they become marketing tools as much as products. We regularly see guests reposting beautifully designed objects on social media, which creates organic visibility for the hotel.

There is a commercial dimension too. The big trend now is hotels building retail concepts in-house, not selling brands you can find in five hundred airports, but things that genuinely belong to the property. COVID helped accelerate this. After two years of lockdown, when people started traveling again, they really wanted to find something that belonged to the place they were staying and to take it home with them.

Has the guest expectation around amenities changed meaningfully since before the pandemic?

I think COVID didn’t destroy channels that were already performing; it stopped businesses that weren’t. The trends I’m describing were already in motion before 2020. The last major project I finalized before the pandemic was The Peninsula Hong Kong: plastic-free packaging, a bespoke scent developed with a local artist for each property in the Peninsula portfolio. Every hotel in the group has a different scent, and they built beautiful storytelling around it, video content, in-elevator retail installations, online and offline sales. Place-specific, locally rooted guest experience was already where the industry was heading. COVID just compressed the timeline.

My view is that the hotel is not my client, the guest is. I can have wonderful relationships with owners and GMs, but if the product doesn’t resonate with the people staying there, the contract doesn’t renew. So we work alongside hotel operators with that perspective always in mind.

Guests increasingly demand experiences that feel singular and tailored, yet they’re staying in properties managed by brands that serve hundreds, if not thousands, of rooms. How do you manufacture genuine bespoke at scale?

It depends entirely on what the brand is trying to say. When we work with Aman, the brief is consistency across properties; the beauty has to hold together globally. When we work with Rosewood, “sense of place” is the entire payoff, so each property gets something different. When we partner with W and Davines, the product is the same everywhere, but the guest experience is crafted locally. At the W Sardinia opening this summer, the beauty was consistent, but everything built around it was specific to the property.

We play across our verticals to determine, together with each client, what has to be consistent globally and what has to be crafted for the property. The trend toward local design, local guest touchpoints, and local sense of place is moving strongly through ultra-luxury, but we are seeing it in broader luxury too. We have worked with Four Seasons for many years, and even there the direction is shifting. We are currently involved in the Four Seasons at Hotel Danieli in Venice. I can’t share details yet, but the brief is something that belongs to Venice, not even to the Four Seasons. The approach at Four Seasons Dallas would be quite different.

There’s an estimated $84T being transferred to Millennials and Gen Z over the coming decade. From your position supplying hotels that have to serve this next generation, what changes are you seeing?

I have the most demanding client in my own house: my daughter, who just turned 20. When I was her age, I dreamed about cars. She couldn’t care less about a car, or about fashion. What she wants is to travel, and every time she travels she wants to be surprised by something she has never seen anywhere else, something she can bring home and share. That, to me, is the brief.

What I have watched evolve in her specifically: at twelve, she was captivated by a well-designed kids’ program at the Four Seasons Maui. At twenty, she cares about skincare, the quality of what is in the room, and whether she can actually buy those items, beautiful pajamas, a well-made t-shirt. What we created for Passalacqua alongside Valentina De Santis is a good example: the objects we developed for the property weren’t hotel products, they were retail products born from a hotel context. That is the direction this is heading.

Where do you see the application of AI in your business? And do the hands of a craftsman still matter in 2026?

They will still matter in 2056. Craftsmanship isn’t going anywhere, and I think we are fortunate to operate in hospitality, because AI is not going to replace the experience of being in a place, or the people who create it.

That said, we would be foolish not to use it. For us, the most meaningful applications are internal: guest profiling, go-to-market strategy, demand forecasting. We are already using AI to anticipate hotel requirements with a precision that manual processes can’t match, and on the design and production side it will meaningfully compress timelines. But the work itself, the material choices, the detail, the judgment, that remains human.

La Bottega started in the Marche countryside in 1981. You now have a showroom in Milan and are expanding to New York and Dubai. What does Italy still offer to the world of luxury hospitality that cannot be sourced elsewhere?

Italians do it better. Jokes aside, the Italian gusto, particularly when it comes to the detail of an object, is something we have always leveraged and will continue to. I am not claiming Italian hotels are the best in the world; there are international properties that are far more sophisticated in marketing or in building iconic status. But when Italy is expressed through any guest touchpoint, through the art of hospitality, the level of attention is something I have rarely seen replicated.

I worked with an owner once who repositioned a vase of flowers by one centimeter because the balance wasn’t right. At the time I thought it was excessive. Now I understand exactly why he did it. That instinct for harmony is what Italy still exports to the world.

Thanks for reading this interview. For more of The Stanza, subscribe to the weekly digest and follow on Instagram.

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Thank you for the incredibly kind notes about my interview with Anne-Laure Ollagnon at Airelles. It excites me to share the stories of hoteliers who are doing hospitality in a unique and interesting way.

Today’s letter is a long one, and I hope it’s one packed with valuable insights for you.

Enjoy,
N

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

Links to the latest podcast episode can be found here.

In today’s newsletter:

• Inside the distribution strategy of the hotels that never need to discount

• The hotels with the most defensible pricing power aren't running bigger sales teams. They're making relationships their competitors have delegated away. What does that look like in practice?

• Most pre-opening budgets are allocated to the wrong things. Luxury hotel PR Jules Perowne on what Passalacqua did instead, and why it went straight to number one on the World's 50 Best

• David Prior designs travel for some of the world's most visible tastemakers. Here is exactly what a hotel needs to have done before it ever gets on his radar.

• SmartFlyer booked over $1B in travel last year. COO Erina Pindar on what the hotels compounding value from the advisor channel are doing

• Belmond CEO Dan Ruff on investing in the guest experience at Villa San Michele

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

For Sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood

UPDATED PRICING: $6M

Shovel-ready, four-story ±45,000 SF development approved for F&B and members club uses with rooftop pool, outdoor dining, and alcohol service. A rare, flagship-scale opportunity with no entitlement risk in prime West Hollywood ideal for a globally recognized brand. The current approved plans features indoor/outdoor flow on various levels, separate public and members-only access points, and flexible floor plates for various hospitality concepts.

Other possible use cases include joint-venturing with current ownership, or re-entitling for boutique hotel or mixed-use residential (≈91 units via density bonus).

Inquire here.

Current listings:

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

Guido Reni was a 17th century Italian baroque painter who trained under Flemish painter Denis Calvaert, then under Ludovico Caracci (cousin of the prolific Annibale). Guido was known for painting dark and sometimes gruesome allegorical scenes with brush precision, influences of Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro technique, and a lighter palette in his later works. Here, he depicted a story from the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament. John the Baptist had criticized Herod for marrying his own brother’s wife. At Herod’s birthday party, Herod promised his stepdaughter Salome (pictured above), anything she wished after she performed an entertaining dance. At the nudge of her mother, she requested the head of John the Baptist on a platter. This scene has been painted by several other prolific artists, including Caravaggio, but this may be one of my favorite interpretations because of the contrast between Salome’s innocence, beauty, and her extravagant oriental garments, and the timeless human themes of jealousy, revenge, and despair.

• Belmond’s reopening of Villa San Michele after an 18-month renovation has been a focal point of the hotel world recently. In addition to the renovation, they’ve also added a spiritual wellness program with Californian Milanese fashion entrepreneur JJ Martin, a spa by Guerlain, and a new fine dining restaurant by young Tuscan chef Alessandro Cozzolino. With all the additions, I’d describe the renovation as more of a repositioning. Something that isn’t talked about enough in the hotel business is the constant need to be upgrading and investing in the guest experience. Not only do the physical spaces need annual maintenance capex, but the best hotel owners are constantly thinking about how to deliver facilities that attract their target guest. I asked Belmond CEO Dan Ruff how they think about the return profile of experiential investment at historic properties such as Villa San Michele:

  “Experiential investment at historic properties is an act of custodianship, and the returns compound over time through brand equity, guest loyalty, and the enduring relevance of the property itself. Our 18-month restoration of Villa San Michele - fewer rooms, more space, more time to linger - makes Slow Luxury an experiential reality, and that is what sustains value across generations of guests.”

On Distribution & Relationships: The Soft Power Behind The World’s Most Successful Hotels

The best perk of my job is access to a wide variety of hotel owners, investors, and management company CEO’s, and getting an insider’s view on how they operate. A striking observation I’ve been reflecting on lately is that the most commercially successful luxury & ultra-luxury hotels are not necessarily the ones with the largest sales teams or the most sophisticated CRM systems, but ones where the owner or CEO has personally invested in the right travel advisor and editorial relationships, instead of delegating this to their sales & marketing teams. In the context of AI changing online hotel distribution systems, for hotels that strive for true excellence in every aspect, the quality of relationships with the right editors and travel advisors is arguably the most underrated variable in long-term rate integrity. What does it take to build relationships that compound into this kind of soft power?

Read more

I’m very excited to share a behind-the-scenes view of a hotel group doing hospitality in a unique way: Airelles.

Ask any sophisticated traveler what they think of Airelles as a brand, and you’ll either get glowing reviews or feedback that it wasn’t for them. This is exactly why I appreciate how they operate — they’re intensely focused on providing a specific kind of experience and being the best at it, rather than trying to appeal to everyone. As an ultra-luxury hotel group competing in a pool of well-capitalized brands that seemingly want to be on everyone’s radar, it’s a bold and respectable strategy.

Although I almost exclusively talk about hotels on this platform, I rarely share my personal experiences staying at the hotels I talk about. But here is something you should know before you listen to this interview: I loved my experience at Airelles’ Le Grand Contrôle so much that I already began planning my next trip there before check out, and am planning to stay longer next time. Le Grand Contrôle is the only hotel in the Palace of Versailles, and I would describe it more as an immersive experience than a hotel. I had the chance to experience private after-hour tours of Versailles and the Grand Trianon, the private family palace of Louis XIV. I rode a stunning French horse between rows of trees in the garden of Versailles. At the Royal Feast by Alain Ducasse, the staff dressed in 17th century costumes choreographed what was the closest I could get to experiencing dinner at court. It was theatrical, glorious, and unforgettable. If you’ve been a reader of The Stanza for a while, you’ll know that I have a passion for history, particularly of this period, and so this experience was special for me.

Then, there’s the gifting, which Airelles is known for. Each time we returned to our room, we were showered with beautiful gifts that were often customized with our initials, along with endless Ladurée macarons, exotic fruits, and snacks. In case you do stay at an Airelles hotel, I won’t spoil it for you and tell you exactly what they gifted me, but I’ll just say that they took “surprise and delight” to another level. As someone privy to hotel P&L’s, it struck me that they clearly have invested a lot into generosity, which is not the easiest decision when you’re operating smaller hotels. But, this generosity communicates that they’re thinking of how to make guests feel special, and therefore, it’s easy to see why Airelles has a cult following and a high return rate.

This is also Anne-Laure’s first podcast interview, and I’m grateful that despite the fact that Airelles tends to be discreet as a group, she was able to share what it takes to build a hotel brand at this level.

Watch on Spotify or Youtube

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Part I: The Travel Advisor as Curator

00:00:27

Erina Pindar, COO of , argues that the travel advisor’s core product is less about access but more so curation and personalization: the construction of high-emotional-impact moments that exist outside the algorithm and cannot be replicated through self-booking.

In Part I of this episode, Erina walks through how SmartFlyer conceptualizes experiences designed to generate genuine surprise for HNW clients, why safari travel has seen a measurable resurgence in demand post-pandemic, and what the rise of multi-generational, long-stay itineraries signals about how the most valuable travel clients are beginning to define the category for themselves.

This episode was made possible in partnership with SmartFlyer.

SmartFlyer works with hotel owners and management companies looking to access a HNW traveler base that sits outside standard distribution channels. Reach out to learn more.

hello@smartflyer.com

Learn more about SmartFlyer here

Follow SmartFlyer on Instagram

Part II: The Art of Emotional Storytelling: How Airelles Builds Ultra-Luxury Around History & Generosity

00:09:54

Anne-Laure Ollagnon is the CEO of Airelles, the French ultra-luxury hotel group owned by entrepreneur Stéphane Courbit, whose portfolio of historic properties spans France and, as of this month, Italy. She joined the group in 2007 when Courbit acquired the original property in Courchevel, bringing a background in M&A law that shaped her approach to transforming heritage buildings into destination assets.

Airelles follows a full ownership model across almost all of its portfolio: Airelles Courchevel, Airelles Val d’Isère, Château de la Messardière and Pan Deï Palais both in Saint-Tropez, La Bastide de Gordes in Provence, and Palladio Venice on the island of Giudecca.

The one exception is Le Grand Contrôle, the only hotel inside the grounds of the Palace of Versailles, which Airelles operates under a concession with the French government. It is arguably the most precise expression of what the brand stands for: identifying sites of irreplaceable historic significance and restoring them into experiences that could not exist anywhere else. Across all of it, Airelles has grown without third-party management contracts, maintaining direct operational control and brand integrity at every property.

In this episode, I sat down with Anne-Laure Ollagnon to explore what it really takes to build and run an ultra-luxury hotel group rooted in historic properties, emotional storytelling, and a culture of generosity that institutional capital structures are rarely designed to sustain.

Interview Highlights:

• The difference between family office capital and institutional capital in ultra-luxury, and how that impacts the guest experience

• How Airelles won the Palace of Versailles tender against more than fifteen competing hotel groups

• The six-year acquisition and authorization process for Airelles Palladio Venice, and what patience as a development discipline actually costs

• Airelles’ philosophy behind owning and operating distinct hotels

• What Anne-Laure looks for when evaluating a new asset, and why emotion is the first filter before any underwriting begins

• How a high-end hotel under 50 keys justifies its ADR and operates profitably without relying on volume

• Anne-Laure’s view on where ultra-luxury is heading

Learn more about Airelles here

Follow Airelles on Instagram

Follow the latest opening in Venice on Instagram: the Airelles Palladio

Follow⁠ ⁠The Stanza on Instagram

I’m hiring an editorial assistant. If you know someone junior who has strong work ethic & precision, and is aligned with the quality and voice of The Stanza, please have them apply here.

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

Links to the latest podcast episode can be found here.

In today’s newsletter:

• Should I hire a flag or operate my hotel independently?

• What does signing an HMA with an institutional flag actually cost you beyond the headline fee?

• When does independence make sense as an investment decision, and when does it not?

• What do most aspiring independent hotel owners get wrong before they even start?

• Dave Barry, investor in Chiltern Firehouse, The Standard, The Hotel Chelsea, and Nine Orchard, on the three conditions that have to be met before independence justifies the risk

• Alex Ohebshalom of Flâneur Hospitality on what it actually takes to build a commercially successful independent hotel

• David Zisser of Omnam Group, one of Europe’s most active hotel developers, on how the best hotel developers think about brand selection from day one of underwriting

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

For Sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood

UPDATED PRICING: $6M

Shovel-ready, four-story ±45,000 SF development approved for F&B and members club uses with rooftop pool, outdoor dining, and alcohol service. A rare, flagship-scale opportunity with no entitlement risk in prime West Hollywood ideal for a globally recognized brand. The current approved plans features indoor/outdoor flow on various levels, separate public and members-only access points, and flexible floor plates for various hospitality concepts.

Other possible use cases include joint-venturing with current ownership, or re-entitling for boutique hotel or mixed-use residential (≈91 units via density bonus).

Inquire here.

Current listings:

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

*Paid subscribers are welcome to email reply any follow up questions, thoughts, and topic suggestions for future newsletters. Please make the most out of your subscription!

To Flag or Not to Flag, That Is the Question

One of the most frequently asked questions I get in my inbox are from people who are either considering opening a hotel or are in the process of acquiring one, and that is:

“Should I hire a third-party operator to manage the hotel? Or should I operate it myself independently?”

There is no straightforward answer. It’s a highly nuanced, and highly consequential question every hotel owner, whether it’s their first hotel, or their 50th acquisition, has to consider.

Part One: The Flag

Along the same vein, many of you who have emailed me about this topic know that the first question you are asked by lenders and equity partners is: “who is the operator?” It’s rarely asked out of genuine curiosity about hospitality philosophy. Rather, it’s asked because the answer determines whether the person on the other side of the table can slot your project into a model they already understand. Signing an HMA with a major flag or operator is a shortcut to credibility, and in many markets, it is the difference between a term sheet and a polite no.

Read more

Today’s letter is fun, light, and sans paywall. It’s my birthday very soon and I’m in a good mood.

It’s also a long post with many photos from the week, and may be truncated in your email. You can view in its entirety on the Substack app or on a browser.

This weekend would be a good time to catch up on recent previous letters:

• Would you bet on the “itinerary play”? The American Mayfair, European pied-à-terres, and a new hospitality business strategy

• Not everyone can nor should do luxury hospitality. Saying what everyone is thinking but won’t say out loud. (Removed paywall on this one for now)

• Is there still a case for lifestyle hotels? Playing devil’s advocate

• Links to the latest podcast episode can be found here.

No new listings this week.

Current listings:

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood (~45,000 SF)

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

Design week is always a treat - Milan lights up to welcome those in the creative industries who have traveled far and wide to participate in what I call the “Coachella for adults”. It’s an intense week full of exhibitions, cocktail parties, dinners, and meet ups with friends and industry colleagues you rarely see. Here’s what I got up to this week:

Sunday

18:35

Arrived at the cocktail opening of Laila Gohar x Arket installation, which was a carnival style carousel with giant fruits and vegetables instead of ponies. Unfortunately, the entire carousel was occupied by those taking selfies so I couldn’t get a good photo.

19:17

Arrived at DIMOREGALLERY, the studio space of the very chic Milanese design firm Dimore Studio. They’ve done some cool hospitality projects, such as Trattoria del Ciumbia (a favorite in Milan), and La Dolce Vita Orient Express trains.

19:45

Made my way over to David Prior’s Spaghettata, his annual Salone party at his Milan home / office. I arrived just in time to catch the beautiful sunset. Met Dave Barry, whom mutual friends have insisted I meet. Dave is a real estate developer in NY and has also worked on cool hotel projects such as Chiltern Firehouse. He also has a fun podcast with Mike Novogratz called Business Untitled.

21:00

My husband picks up me, Jeff Klein, and his husband John for a double date at Casa Cipriani. It’s been a while since I laughed that hard. We ordered cacio e pepe, carpaccio, and filet.

Monday

11:40

The St. Moritz tourism board graciously invited me for a tour of Villa Pestarini. Villa Pestarini is a private home designed by Italian architect Franco Albini. The house was decorated with furniture and objects made by Alcova’s curation of excellent artisans.

13:02

After the tour, we were ushered to The Wilde, where we had an intimate al fresco seafood lunch.

15:23

Headed home for a bit to catch up on some emails and recharge my social battery.

18:27

Met up with Jules Perowne, the only hotel publicist who has my number, and Dave Barry for an aperitivo at the very chic Bulgari Hotel garden. I love nerding out about hospitality with fellow geeks!

20:13

Arrived at the T Mag party at beautiful Villa Necchi, which was dedicated to the end of Hanya Yanagihara’s tenure as Editor-in-Chief. Met up with Andrea Franchini, Global Brand Director at Edition and W Hotels, and his lovely partner Cian O’Connor who write a great Substack ( , where he reviews spas at luxury hotels). The Lake Como Edition curated the cocktail bar, but didn’t have any water! Ran into plenty of familiar faces from NY and London, which is always wonderful. Said hi to the coolest Gen X person I know, . Ended my night at the party discussing peptides with The Stanza podcast alum Dr. Jonathan Leary.

Tuesday

9:35

Met up with some friends from Milan at the Cromo Tea pop-up on the roof of Torre Velasca, which will become a new members club called Madison House. It’ll be operated by Dubai-based Sunset Hospitality Group.

11:14

Visited the beautiful Nilufar Depot, which always has one of the best curations of furniture. This year, the theme was “Grand Hotel”, although nothing about the exhibition gave me “hotel vibes” other than the faux front desk reception desk.

12:27

Went back home to work on the next podcast episode, which I can’t wait to share with you all.

18:23

Arrive at Sant Ambroeus to celebrate the group’s 90th anniversary. There was a beautiful table full of all their best pastry treats, along with pastry chefs decorating giant princess cakes. Said hi to Cosimo Gherardini, Alireza Niroomand, Ana Mari Rovirosa at Sant Ambroeus, and ran into more familiar faces.

19:13

Finally get to the Artemest cocktail, which has consistently been one of my top 3 activations during Salone every year. Artemest is a platform curating beautiful furniture. Every year they decorate an apartment to showcase their curation of artisans. The dining room by Rockwell Group was particularly memorable.

20:04

My friends and I popped into the Flamingo Estate x Kohler event. I was today year’s old to learn that Kohler has apparently invested in Flamingo Estate. The event itself was more of a social event and not a true exhibition.

20:23

We walked over to the RH event, which is the talk of the town. It was chaos outside, with paparazzi swarming any blacked out van that emptied out any sort of recognizable person at the entrance. RH was very generous with the catering and none of it was done with negative intentions. It was just shocking given that the Milanese aren’t used to this level of spectacle. Some of the words eventgoers used to describe the event were: “disgraceful”, “ridiculous”, “ tacky”, and “savage”. Rumor says that RH spent $1.5M on catering alone, which included Vesper Martinis, Petrossian Caviar, a recreation of Bar Basso, Sant Ambroeus and more. See the invite below. I’m just wondering why they chose Hugel to DJ the party, and why they chose Margot Robbie and Zoe Saldana to make appearances given they have no obvious connection to Italy, luxury furniture, or the design world. Regardless of what people think of RH, the event was certainly a very American way to make an entrance into Milan, a city that leans towards discretion and understated elegance. One interesting comment I kept hearing was that RH furniture is too large for Milanese apartments. After all, the elevators here are tiny and moving typically requires crane lifting furniture from the street into narrow terrace windows. The restaurant may do fine, but I doubt the Milanese would buy RH furniture when they have the world’s best craftsmen in their backyard. After all, Milan is the design capital of the world.

21:30

Dinner at Rost with friends from NY and Milan. If you haven’t been yet, I highly recommend.

Wednesday

18:35

Stopped by The Thinking Traveller cocktail party at the beautiful home of the owners of Rocca delle Tre Contrade in Sicily. The Thinking Traveller is a villa rental platform operating in Italy, Greece, and France. There were Sicilian nonne making arancini from scratch in the kitchen, which is a great idea for a dinner party at home.

20:01

Met up with a friend at Nino, another great Milan restaurant that recently opened. Diego Rossi of Trippa fame opened Nino, a 1970’s osteria serving creative twists on the classics. Highly recommend.

22:34

Organized friends from various phases of my life to gather for the Silencio at Ronin pop up. Local celeb Simone de Kunovich DJ’d and it was a full house. Discussed peptides with a new friend from NY.

Thursday

Shot some fun content for the podcast on this day, which deviates from my usual interview format.

Friday

12:49

Caught the end of Giampiero Tagliaferri’s exhibition at his design studio in Brera: “Materials at Edge”. Art curator Truls Blaasmo and gallerist Chiara Rusconi collaborated on the art pairing. I first met Giampiero in Naples last summer and am excited to see that he’s having momentum in the design world.

That was my 2026 Salone! Back to regular programming next Friday. Have a great weekend!

Thanks for reading. For more of The Stanza, follow on Instagram here.

I’m mentally preparing for the Coachella of the design industries: Milan Design Week, and will be sharing highlights on IG stories.

If you are coming to Milan for Salone and need F&B recommendations, I compile all my recommended restaurants, bars, and cafes on the AmiGo app. It’s free to use with code THESTANZA. If we happen to be at the same events, please say hello!

Some news:

The Stanza has always operated on a foundation of credibility, unique insight, and storytelling. This is most likely the reason why you find it valuable.

As you know, The Stanza is not traditional journalism. I don’t copy and paste press releases, nor do I “cover”, “report”, or “break news”. I don’t accept inbound interview or feature pitches. All guests, whether for written interviews or the podcast, are invited by me through my personal relationships. This ensures the integrity of The Stanza’s brand and voice, and ultimately, a better experience for you as a reader and listener.

This newsletter is pivoting to a slightly different format to serve you all better. Each Friday, I’ll answer a big question or dissect a pertinent theme in the business of hospitality, with input from my personal network of leaders making decisions that impact the broader industry. The goal is to make each issue insightful, informative, and a genuine pleasure to read.

You can read last week’s issue as an example (paywall removed).

If you’ve been thinking of upgrading, now would be a good time to do it as the current annual price is the lowest it will ever be. Starting Monday, the price of an annual subscription will increase to $250, or the price of a power lunch in Manhattan for two. Paid subscribers are welcome to request topics or questions to dive into on Fridays.

Several of you have told me that this newsletter has helped you prepare for meetings, challenged your perspectives, or helped you develop a concept further. Others have told me that the voice of The Stanza cuts through the industry noise. These notes motivate me to become a better storyteller every day, and I’m incredibly honored to have earned space in your inbox.

Thank you for being part of The Stanza’s evolution.

-Nadine

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

Links to the latest podcast episode can be found here.

In today’s newsletter:

• What’s the investment case for design-led lifestyle hotels charging under $1K ADR?

• If lifestyle hotels serve a different customer than luxury and ultra luxury, how do you underwrite demand resilience in a segment that is more exposed to discretionary spending?

• Richard Caring’s empire of Mayfair members clubs and restaurants just traded at a 24x multiple. What does that say about how institutional capital is underwriting hospitality brands?

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

No new listings this week.

Current listings:

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood (~45,000 SF)

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

K-Shaped Hospitality, Part II: The Contrarian Argument for Lifestyle Hotels

It was great to hear such a strong response to last week’s newsletter on the impact of the K-Shaped economy on hospitality. The general conclusion was that while the ultra luxury thesis makes sense on paper, there are some big caveats to that thesis:

• Too many operators and too much capital are rushing into this ADR segment, which naturally erodes the returns that made it attractive in the first place;

• Most of the product resulting from this “rush” does not occupy irreplaceable and irreplicable real estate;

• Most of these operators do not have a unique and strong point of view, and therefore are not effective at telling their own brand story;

• They also do not intuitively understand what service means at the luxury level, and it shows through the staff interactions, which will make it difficult to survive the inevitable market contraction when the only paying guests left are the ones who are used to high quality service and experience (the exact HNWI traveler that everyone is chasing).

In today’s context during which capital is rushing into “ultra luxury” on the back of macro data on HNW/UHNW travelers, the contrarian argument surrounds the case to develop lifestyle hotels, not as a consolation prize for those priced out of ultra luxury, but as a category worth building toward on its own terms.

Read more

Thank you for your feedback on the interview I published this week with Jonathan Goldstein. If there is one interview you should watch from The Stanza, this would be it.

Last week, I asked you all to share with me any names of companies building the ultimate CRM for luxury hospitality. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that Dorsia is building an operating system for members clubs. The move makes intuitive sense. Dorsia has always been a membership business at its core, and the technology stack they built to manage reservations, payments, access, and member behavior in the restaurant vertical translates naturally to what a members club needs to run well. The platform covers the full stack: member CRM and lifecycle management, bookings and reservations, frictionless payments, access control, a white-labeled member-facing app, communications, and a data intelligence layer that gives club operators visibility into member behavior and engagement. They are covering switching costs for select early partners and offering a free demo to clubs interested in seeing the platform before committing. If you run a members club and have been looking to replace the system you are currently tolerating, reach out to knox@dorsia.com.

Enjoy reading this week’s letter,

Nadine

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

Links to the latest podcast episode can be found here.

In today’s newsletter:

• Is the asset-light model incompatible with competitive ultra luxury hotels?

• Why do so many luxury hospitality brands look and feel the same, and when will that become a drag on returns?

• The next market contraction will expose why “brand” is overrated in hospitality.

• What is the most interesting whitespace in hospitality right now?

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

No new listings this week.

Current listings:

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood (~45,000 SF)

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

K-Shaped Hospitality

The year is 2026, and the world is obsessed with luxury hospitality. Open any social feed and you’ll see a plethora of LinkedIn poetry claiming to know what hotels get wrong about the guest experience, or green screen videos giving recycled cliff notes on Adrian Zecha-era Aman. And have you noticed the online fervor for hospitality whenever you see this type of content? It’s a direct reflection of the real world and where people are spending their time, attention, and money. Members clubs, social wellness, “Eurosummer”, 8PM Friday reservations, fashion & hospitality crossovers…we simply can’t get enough of hospitality. And for good reason - after a period of dismal lockdown, the urge to experience and connect with people and places has only seemed to intensify over the last five years. Plus, life is so much better when you’re spending it to experience your own subjective definition of beauty.

The term “K-shaped economy” has been coming up in many conversations lately, typically as a means to justify why a developer/operator/investor should pursue the ultra luxury hotel segment. at wrote about how the hollowing out of the aspirational middle is also not a hospitality-specific observation, and that it’s a dynamic across the entire built environment: retail, residential, office, and F&B are all exhibiting parallel patterns.

It’s helpful to have historical context around the K-shaped economy: why is this pattern emerging now? Since 2008, the Fed Reserve cut interest rates to near zero and kept them there until 2015, then again during the pandemic to steer the US economy from an iceberg. Fourteen-odd years of near-zero rates were one of the most significant wealth creation events in modern history. Equity markets compounded, real estate appreciated, venture capital and the mass adoption of new tech generated returns that looked extraordinary by any prior benchmark, and the cohort of genuinely wealthy individuals expanded materially as a result. I’ve spoken several times before about the current Great Wealth Transfer, the largest transfer in history, which further underlines the K-shaped economy concept.

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The Stanza is the best independent media platform discussing the business of luxury hospitality, and I owe much of that to my time at Cain. I'm excited to share a special interview with my former boss, Jonathan Goldstein, about what it takes to build one of the world's leading luxury hospitality & real estate portfolios.

Watch on Spotify or Youtube

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Part I: AI and the Future of Hospitality

Every hospitality operator is asking the same question right now: what does AI actually mean for my business? Marc Lotenberg, founder of Dorsia, has a clear thesis: the operators who will define the next era of hospitality are not the ones who chase the technology, but the ones who double down on the art, the craft, and the magic that no algorithm can replicate.

In Part 1 of this episode, Marc shares why AI will finally deliver the hyper-personalized, frictionless experience that modern luxury has always promised, how it will change everything from the kitchen to the moment a guest walks out the door, and why the pace of that disruption is arriving far faster than most people in the industry expect.

This episode is made possible in partnership with Dorsia. To get access to Dorsia’s curation of impossible tables and cultural events, download the app and use code THESTANZA.

Part II: Early Conviction: Investing in Aman and the Future of Luxury Hospitality

Jonathan Goldstein is the founder and CEO of Cain International, a real estate investment and operating company managing over $14 billion in assets across luxury residential, hospitality, sports, and entertainment. Cain was formed in partnership with Todd Boehly and Eldridge Industries, built on a shared conviction that gateway cities and branded experiential real estate represented a generational investment opportunity.

Cain’s real estate portfolio spans some of the most scrutinized assets in luxury hospitality. At the center of it is One Beverly Hills, a $5 billion, 17.5-acre mixed-use development flagged by Aman in the heart of Beverly Hills. Jonathan also co-led the $900 million investment into Aman Group alongside Saudi PIF, subsequently partnering with Mubadala Capital to finance the brand’s expansion. Other assets in the portfolio include Six Senses Courchevel, Raffles Boston, the Delano Miami, and a stake in the Delano brand in partnership with Ennismore & Accor. Cain was investing in luxury and experiential real estate long before the pandemic made the thesis obvious to the broader market.

I worked on One Beverly Hills for Jonathan at Cain, which gives this conversation a level of access and specificity that is rarely present in interviews at this level of the industry.

Interview Highlights:

• Approach to risk and creating an asymmetrical outcome in business

• The story behind the Aman investment opportunity

• What sets Aman apart from the rest

• What it takes to earn the trust of sovereign wealth funds

• How Cain assembled the One Beverly Hills site

• The buyer profile of Aman Residences in Beverly Hills

• Developing other luxury projects: Six Senses Courchevel & Raffles Boston

• Repositioning the Delano brand & Miami hotel

• Jonathan’s approach to choosing a hotel management partner

• The personalization problem luxury hospitality has yet to solve

Learn more about Cain’s portfolio ⁠here⁠.

Follow⁠ ⁠The Stanza on Instagram

If you or someone you know is building a CRM for luxury hotels, and you truly understand what “luxury” means, please reply to this email and introduce yourself.

The next podcast episode debuts next week, and it’s a very special one!

Happy Easter weekend,

Nadine

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

Links to the latest podcast episode can be found here.

In today’s newsletter:

• Is the ultra luxury hospitality business model as we know it being reinvented?

• Could Palm Beach become the American answer to Mayfair?

• Why Europe is a better (and certainly more glamorous) market for branded residences.

• The restaurant-to-hotel brand play: genius or disaster?

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

No new listings this week.

Current listings:

• For sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood (~45,000 SF)

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

The Travellers Club on the Champs-Élysées occupies the Hôtel de la Païva, the last surviving example of the grand private mansions that once lined the avenue. The building was commissioned in the mid-19th century by Esther Lachmann, known as La Païva, a courtesan of Russian origin who had allegedly vowed as a young woman, after being thrown from a carriage onto the pavement of the Champs-Élysées, to one day build the most beautiful house on the street in revenge against all the men who had mistreated her. She eventually secured both the name and the fortune of Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck, one of Europe's wealthiest industrialists, who financed a mansion with a construction cost estimated at the modern equivalent of nearly a billion dollars. Auguste Rodin worked as one of its sculptors. Paul Baudry, who would later go on to paint the Opéra Garnier, painted the frescoes. The yellow Algerian onyx staircase remains the only one of its kind in the world. La Païva fled Paris under suspicion of espionage during the Franco-Prussian War and died in Germany at 64, after which the mansion stood empty for decades before becoming the Travellers Club in 1904, a gentlemen's club that, ironically, only recently opened its doors to women.

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If you’re a reader of The Stanza, you probably enjoy going to restaurants that require a bit of chess to reserve, but you likely don’t enjoy the chess part. I first discovered Dorsia two years ago and found it to be a nice solution to that. I don’t love texting anyone for reservation favors. It feels a bit burdensome, and even if the operator on the other side says they don’t mind, I can’t imagine that it’s fun having your friends blow up your phone for bookings. One of my favorite use cases for Dorsia is getting direct access to places like Jondal Ibiza in July, or other impossible reservations such as Torrisi or Straker’s on a Friday at 8PM, all without asking for favors or paying cash to a random concierge person. I also love that it allows you to “dine and dash” as it stores your card information and automatically takes care of the bill, removing the awkward payment part at the end of a meal.

The solution Dorsia offers to hospitality operators is also compelling. Rather than competing on inventory like a traditional booking platform, Dorsia operates on a minimum spend model: members commit to a per-person spend in exchange for guaranteed access to venues and experiences that are otherwise nearly impossible to get into. This optimizes revenue for primetime tables and avoids the issue of giving these tables to groups that don’t order much but are there to take photos.

Beyond restaurants, Dorsia is expanding its platform to travel and events. As The Stanza continues to explore various facets of hospitality, particularly on the demand side, I’m excited to share that I’m continuing my partnership with Dorsia this year to share more on how hospitality will evolve with tech and AI.

The Stanza readers can get access to Dorsia here (code: THESTANZA).

Marc Lotenberg is the founder and CEO of Dorsia. He has worked in hospitality since he was 13, moving through nearly every role in restaurants, events, and nightlife before pivoting to media, where he acquired W Magazine from Condé Nast. When COVID brought that chapter to a close, he moved to Miami and turned his attention to a problem he had been thinking about for years: why is it still this hard to get a good table? Dorsia was the answer. In February 2025, the company announced $50.4M in seed and Series A funding at a $146M valuation, led by Index Ventures, with participation from Invus Group and individual investors including Naomi Gleit of Meta, Sweetgreen co-founder Jon Neman, hospitality figures Mario Carbone and David Grutman, and operators Simon Kim and Jeff Zalaznick of Major Food Group.

There has always been an invisible economy around prime tables. You know the maître d’, you text him, and as long as you’re a regular he’ll get you in. But now you’re formalizing that, and finding a way to create value for both the customer and the restaurant. What made you want to do that, and why now?

A few things collided at once. COVID hit, restaurants outsourced so much of their product to tech companies, and the tech was really bad. They lost control of their dining room, and cancellations and no-shows are hard to avoid. And at the same time, the world was moving from restaurants doing 2,000 covers a night to 200 covers a night, but the tech was built for the old-school legacy systems. That curation of who’s in the dining room is important. Understanding how much people are spending and what they are spending it on is important. So that timing was what created the ‘magic moment’. We knew that eventually people were going to come out of COVID and there was going to be this mad dash for experiences.

And then on the unit economics side: there was all this demand, but the money wasn’t all going to the restaurants or the servers. It was leaking into this invisible economy through grey market reservation platforms. So I was looking at all that and thinking there’s a better way to do this: by curating which people should be coming in, get them to commit to a spend so that everyone can win in the ecosystem.

Social media has effectively crowd-curated the same 30 most popular restaurants in every major city. How do you see that changing the way people access these places, and what’s Dorsia’s role in the curation?

In a world where everything looks “good” as a baseline, the ultimate distinguishing traits are going to be taste and critical thinking ability. There will be a future in which the phone disappears, and the focus will be on entertaining your customer. Most of these companies with websites, bad experiences, and OTAs are gone. You’re not going to be scrolling through a list of things trying to filter which hotel, which nights, what availability. You’re just going to be talking to your AI agent, and your agent is going to be booking places based on your patterns and what you already want.

What we’re building is closer to Netflix or Spotify than to a reservation platform. It’ll be about entertaining you and bringing you on a journey, and telling you where you’re going, when you’re going, who you’re going with, why. And you’ll feel like you’re just covered.

When a restaurant or hotel goes viral, you have very little control over who comes through the door, and it can very quickly lose its desirability. You don’t want the crowd that’s there just to take a photo. You want the crowd that genuinely loves the experience and wants to support the business. How is Dorsia helping operators manage that?

Social media was almost like a death sentence to restaurants in so many ways, because it filled dining rooms with influencers going to these restaurants for social clout. They clogged up the dining room just to create content, which creates a weird vibe. And then it brought their audience to the restaurant, which is not what restaurants actually want or need. If that’s not the audience you’re going after, you’re just clogging your whole system with noise and the wrong people, and losing your point of view.

Our solution for restaurants is: one, curating the right customer for them. Two, getting them the right revenue optimization. And three, increasing the overall hospitality experience. You’re going to be walking into a restaurant soon and they’re going to know you’re approaching, your table is waiting, your glass of wine is on the table, and there’s a special menu based on your behavioral patterns that wouldn’t ever be possible without that technology. Restaurants can’t build this themselves. They don’t have the tech infrastructure. Someone who really understands hospitality has to build the apparatus for them, so they can focus on the entertainment, the show, the theater.

Dorsia has an application process, which is an interesting component of the product and the experience. Walk me through how that works. How do you decide who gets in?

It’s not just in or out; we use degrees of separation and connectivity points. When I was promoting back in the day in high school, I was literally collecting names and addresses, building charts by schools. It was about the quality of your black book. Then email came along and it became about volume. All that did was dilute the quality of the outreach. The whole point of digital was supposed to be precision, and we lost control of that.

We’re about to come into the era of ultimate precision and personalization. For the hospitality tech companies that have cleaned and sanitized their data, and know how to curate a crowd, winner-take-all models are about to occur. For us, we’re focused on ‘top of pyramid’. We’re not everything to everyone. We don’t do any paid marketing. It’s all through degrees of separation, people nominating their friends, and those friends nominating theirs. When we bring the social components into Dorsia later this year, you’ll be able to see your circles and your connectivity points, and we’ll help you connect the dots on who you should be having dinner with when you’re both in the same city.

How would you describe the typical Dorsia member?

It’s hard to put a specific person to it. It’s people who appreciate nice things and don’t mind spending money on experiences. They appreciate the acts of dining, relationships, community, and meeting new people. We’re not the best app for the homebody who wants to eat at home six, seven nights a week. We cater to people who want to live life and experience our version of what living life is.

It’s more about a state of mind than a specific person. We have people that are 21 years old using the app and people that are 81. We have grandfathers, sons, and grandsons all using the app, and the referral chain often goes in unexpected directions. When you watch the trees of how these people are connected on screen, it’s pretty remarkable.

Let’s talk about the founding story of Dorsia. Was there a specific moment that inspired you to start the business?

I bought W Magazine from Condé Nast, and by the time COVID hit I was done with media and print. I moved to Miami and started talking to different hospitality groups. And I kept coming back to the same obsession: a dinner reservation is such a pain to get. Even when I wanted to go somewhere, I had to text owners and ask favors, and I always felt weird about it. As an owner, you want people like that in the place. But then they feel weird texting you, and you’re getting blown up on your phone all the time. No one’s happy with the outcome.

I started working through the model with Simon Kim (Founder of Gracious Hospitality, Cote and Cocodaq) early on. He got it immediately and understood we needed to bring Major Food Group on board to make the launch work, and he helped make that happen. When they joined, it really accelerated everything.

And when I went out to raise money, I didn’t even have to ask. Friends who had never put a penny into anything I’d done in media were calling me: “I’m in. Will you take my money?” That told me it was clearly a problem affecting a lot of people.

The name. I love the reference.

The second I saw it I knew that was it. But nobody wanted me to use it. I went to a top PR agency and their executive team said they wouldn’t work on the account if we kept it. The owner texted me afterward: “Look, I can’t take the account, but if you’ve got strong intuition about it, go with it.” Every single co-founder told me not to use it. I had such a strong intuition about it from the start. And I think that’s so important. Hospitality is going to be about whoever has a really strong point of view and conviction.

If you had to boil it down to its core, what problem is Dorsia solving?

Access, removing friction, and personalization. Those are the three. The part we haven’t fully solved yet, but are aiming for this year, is who you should be spending your time with, where you should be spending your time, and when you should be going. When we nail that, it’s going to change your entire outlook on what you think a tech platform can be.

There’s a version of this story where a platform like Dorsia could replace the maître d’ and the human layer of hospitality with a tech product. What’s your take on that?

Right now, maître d’s are looking at us like: I don’t know if you’re my friend or my enemy. What I can assure you is that in a short order of time, they’re going to look at us as their most important tool. We can’t do what they do. There’s a complete art to it. They’re personable, they remember everything about the customer, they speak multiple languages, they know how to read a room. That’s not tech-based. What we’re going to do is give them the ability to really shine and be the best versions of themselves they’ve ever been able to be. That’s when they’re going to say: I cannot perform at this level without Dorsia.

And I’ve seen what happens when that changes. There are restaurants I’ve been to that I loved, partly because I had a great connection with the maître d’. When that person left, the food didn’t change, nothing changed. But the welcoming changed, and that magic changed a bit. That role is going to become so incredibly important. Every restaurant is going to need a high EQ, relationship-based person there, who’s part of the show and welcoming guests. We’re not here to replace that in any way, shape or form. We want to be the tools that help them do the best they can consistently.

Thanks for reading this interview. For more of The Stanza, subscribe to the weekly digest and follow on Instagram.

Subscribe now

I apologize for a late letter and thank you for your patience.

This week I had the pleasure of living in a few very beautiful hotels, and I wanted to share an experience that has left a big impact on me.

Upon arrival at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, as my butler, Angel, was pouring me a welcome drink and talking me through the iPad room controls, I noticed a stuffed brown dachshund keychain on the coffee table, along with a welcome note and a case of mini pastries. If you know me IRL, you’ll know about my brown dachshund named Miuccia, who is my sidekick and comes with me almost everywhere in Milan. It was a perfect coincidence that I had spent the car ride from the airport to the hotel looking at pictures of her because I was missing her!

It was the most thoughtful and personalized welcome gift that I’ve ever received at a hotel. Angel let me know that the guest services team did a little “stalking” prior to my arrival. It was a simple gesture to let me know that the hotel is thinking of how to make me feel welcome and looked after. There couldn’t have been a better arrival experience.

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

Links to the latest podcast episode can be found here.

In today’s newsletter:

• Everyone wants hotel exposure, and LVMH is no exception. But consumer sensibility alone isn't enough to create value in hospitality real estate.

• What does it take to close a $4.3B loan for an ultra-luxury hotel and branded residential project in this environment?

• What is the most undervalued component of the guest experience right now?

• Points programs were built for a different era. Who is paying the price for that today?

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

Hotel Acquisitions Lead, The Six Bells

The Six Bells — the Brooklyn-rooted hospitality brand behind a Michelin-rated Hudson Valley inn — is seeking a seasoned Hotel Acquisitions Lead to drive their next chapter of growth. If you have 7+ years in hotel or hospitality real estate and a network of owners, brokers, and developers you can actually call (not just LinkedIn-connect), this is a rare consulting opportunity to work directly with a founder building something with genuine soul. You’ll source and advance acquisition opportunities — hotels, inns, adaptive reuse properties — across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and South, with the autonomy of a lean team and the credibility of a brand that’s already earned its Michelin star. Independent hotel instincts are a must. Email hiring@thesixbells.com.

For Sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

A rare chance to acquire one of Mykonos’s crown jewels: a fully operational, 5-star luxury boutique hotel set directly on the water. The property spans nearly 5,000m² of beachfront estate with approximately 40 keys, a mix of luxury suites and private villas, framed by a private beach, multiple pools, indoor and outdoor F&B venues, and a full spa and wellness center.

A recent €3M renovation means the infrastructure is in place and the asset is ready to operate. The opportunity is in repositioning: the hotel currently runs an ADR of ~€600, and a new operator with unified design and optimized F&B and wellness programming can push that well north of €1,100.

What makes this especially compelling is what you can’t build anymore. Mykonos now has a strict ban on new hotel developments, making existing beachfront assets like this essentially irreplaceable.

Inquire here.

• For sale: Very chic & elegant 90-key boutique hotel in Nice

• Investment opportunity: Ultra-luxury hotel & branded residential development in downtown NYC

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood (~45,000 SF)

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

Artist Paolo Del Gallo’s historic family home in Rome. Full tour on ’s Substack.

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Today’s newsletter is a longer one, so I won’t waste my breath up here.

Thank you everyone for your continued feedback on the new format of the podcast. Links to the latest pod episode can be found here.

Enjoy,

Nadine

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

In today’s newsletter:

• Where is 3 and 4-star hotel product trading in Rome and Mallorca right now?

• Jeff Klein on how to value a members club business.

• The same segmentation playing out in hotels is happening in members clubs.

• Blackstone, Richard Caring, and the inevitable institutionalization of members clubs as an asset class.

• Amidst conflict in the Middle East, I asked four industry leaders the question everyone is thinking about.

• When price is no object: the data behind ultra luxury’s resilience.

• One compelling concept is all it takes to build a hospitality empire.

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

Hotel Acquisitions Lead, The Six Bells

The Six Bells — the Brooklyn-rooted hospitality brand behind a Michelin-rated Hudson Valley inn — is seeking a seasoned Hotel Acquisitions Lead to drive their next chapter of growth. If you have 7+ years in hotel or hospitality real estate and a network of owners, brokers, and developers you can actually call (not just LinkedIn-connect), this is a rare consulting opportunity to work directly with a founder building something with genuine soul. You’ll source and advance acquisition opportunities — hotels, inns, adaptive reuse properties — across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and South, with the autonomy of a lean team and the credibility of a brand that’s already earned its Michelin star. Independent hotel instincts are a must. Email hiring@thesixbells.com.

For Sale: Beachfront 5-Star Boutique Hotel in Mykonos

A rare chance to acquire one of Mykonos’s crown jewels: a fully operational, 5-star luxury boutique hotel set directly on the water. The property spans nearly 5,000m² of beachfront estate with approximately 40 keys, a mix of luxury suites and private villas, framed by a private beach, multiple pools, indoor and outdoor F&B venues, and a full spa and wellness center.

A recent €3M renovation means the infrastructure is in place and the asset is ready to operate. The opportunity is in repositioning: the hotel currently runs an ADR of ~€600, and a new operator with unified design and optimized F&B and wellness programming can push that well north of €1,100.

What makes this especially compelling is what you can’t build anymore. Mykonos now has a strict ban on new hotel developments, making existing beachfront assets like this essentially irreplaceable.

Inquire here.

• For sale: Very chic & elegant 90-key boutique hotel in Nice

• Investment opportunity: Ultra-luxury hotel & branded residential development in downtown NYC

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood (~45,000 SF)

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

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I’ve just spent a few days in Paris, where the hospitality scene seems to be thriving and lively as ever, although I could have just felt that way as I caught the tail end of fashion week. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to the new and stylish wellness club, Sant Roch, which was opened by a former boutique fitness entrepreneur Jules Bouscatel. It offers contrast therapy, along with breathwork and meditation guidance. I like how the offering is very specific and clear, which is something that I think more wellness businesses could fine tune in order to sell their value proposition cleanly.

Thank you for all your kind words on the new format of the podcast this year. The season debuts with Valentina De Santis, owner of the iconic Grand Hotel Tremezzo and creator of one of my favorite hotels in Europe, Passalacqua. Several of you shared that you found her perspective on building a legacy vs building for an exit particularly insightful, and that’s exactly the reason why I chose to debut the season with Valentina.

While there will be several guests on the show that are either backed by institutional capital or are the institutional capital, I thought that starting the season with Valentina’s long term “family business” mindset was especially pertinent in the current era of “hospitality mania” we’re in. In the interview, Valentina shares some of the big operational decisions she’s made in order to prioritize the guest experience and longevity of the business, such as the decision to avoid doing weddings on Lake Como (which is one of the most popular wedding destinations for wealthy Americans) and the decision to be generous with the small details, such as bathroom amenities.

My goal in highlighting these operational differences is to share the perspective that scale is not the only marker of success in hospitality.

I can’t wait for the rest of the season to unfold!

Links to the episode can be found here.

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

In today’s newsletter:

• Why are lenders now comfortable underwriting hotels where half the revenue comes from restaurants and bars?

• Why are European hospitality brands racing to build branded residences in Miami right now?

• Can AI replicate taste, or is taste the last competitive advantage humans still control?

• Are we entering a world where luxury hotels compete less on rooms and more on culture, taste, and community?

• If oil prices spike again, will it hurt luxury travel, or actually make elite destinations even more exclusive?

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

No new listings this week.

Other opportunities currently live:

• For sale: Very chic & elegant 90-key boutique hotel in Nice

• Investment opportunity: Ultra-luxury hotel & branded residential development in downtown NYC

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood (~45,000 SF)

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

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You can also watch this interview on Spotify, listen on Apple, or watch on YouTube.

Thank you for supporting The Stanza and please do share your thoughts on the episode!

-Nadine

Part I: The Business of Six Figure Travel

How does one quantify the thesis that affluent consumers are prioritizing experiences over possessions? Luxury travel advisory SmartFlyer reports a 75% year over year increase in trips exceeding $500,000, alongside a 41% rise in bookings between $100,000 and $499,000.

In this mini segment, SmartFlyer COO Erina Pindar shares what is fueling this growth, from multi-generational safaris in Botswana to Antarctica by private jet and yacht-hopping across the Mediterranean. She explains why modern luxury is defined by privacy, access, and highly personalized execution.

At this level, it’s not just about the hotel. It’s about designing a journey that feels entirely your own.

This episode is made possible by . Follow ⁠@smartflyer⁠ on Instagram or visit ⁠smartflyer.com⁠ to learn more.

Part II: Dreams Don’t Have a Price”: The Philosophy Behind Lake Como’s Most Iconic Hotels

Valentina De Santis is a third-generation hotelier and the owner of two of Lake Como’s most celebrated properties: the iconic Grand Hotel Tremezzo and the intimate 24-room villa hotel, Passalacqua — which debuted at #1 on The World’s 50 Best Hotels list in 2022.

Her family has shaped Lake Como hospitality for over half a century. In the 1970s, her grandfather acquired the historic Grand Hotel Tremezzo — originally built in 1910 to serve Europe’s aristocracy — and restored it to its former grandeur. What began as a bold entrepreneurial leap became a generational legacy rooted in independence, long-term stewardship, and an uncompromising belief in beauty.

Born and raised on the shores of Lake Como — quite literally in the back corridors of the Grand Hotel Tremezzo — Valentina grew up immersed in the rhythms of hospitality. Today, she serves as both custodian and visionary for her family’s portfolio, expanding it thoughtfully while preserving its soul. Alongside her parents, she led the acquisition and transformation of Passalacqua, an 18th-century villa that had been a private home for over 200 years before reopening as one of the most celebrated boutique hotels in the world.

In an era dominated by global hotel groups and private equity, Valentina remains fiercely committed to family ownership, financial independence, and building for continuity — not exit. Her philosophy blends instinct with discipline, emotional intelligence with operational rigor, and above all, a deeply Italian belief in villeggiatura: the art of slow, meaningful travel.

This interview was filmed at ⁠Casabianca⁠ in Lake Como, the De Santis’ family’s art gallery showcasing their personal collection of modern and contemporary art.

Interview Highlights

• Growing up inside the Grand Hotel Tremezzo and witnessing Lake Como’s evolution

• The four-week auction battle that led to acquiring Passalacqua

• Restoring an eighteenth-century villa under Italy’s preservation laws

• Winning number one in the world and choosing to change nothing

• The philosophy of villeggiatura and creating hotels that slow guests down

• The subtle operational details that quietly define true luxury

• Designing for conviction instead of guest expectations

• Why financial independence is non-negotiable

• Defining success through continuity rather than exit

If you enjoyed this episode, you’ll also enjoy reading The Stanza’s Friday weekly newsletter

Subscribe now

Connect with ⁠Valentina on Instagram⁠

Follow ⁠Passalacqua⁠ and ⁠Grand Hotel Tremezzo⁠

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I hope that you’re all doing okay despite what’s happening in the world right now. If you’re in the Middle East or have family and friends there now, I pray for everyone’s safety.

The world is changing at an astonishingly rapid pace right now. Just last week, I was having a conversation with a restaurant operator who was optimistic about the future of hospitality in the Gulf region and its growth potential. I don’t know if that same conversation would take place today, just a few days after. Middle Eastern capital has traditionally flowed to the west because cities like London and New York have been perceived as safe havens for capital preservation. In recent years, that trend has been increasingly reversed as investors seek yield in emerging markets.

As the conflict unfolds, I’ve seen contradicting messages online. For example, some Dubai residents are sharing that their daily lives haven’t been as impacted as much as the panicked sentiment on social media dictates. Others who were visiting have indeed been panicking about finding a way back home, and have shared photos of mattresses with fine linens in the garages of luxury hotels, surrounded by the cars you’d imagine to be parked there.

I’ve been reflecting lately how the concepts of safety and freedom won’t be taken for granted in the future reality of AI and a changing world order. With that context, how will the future of hospitality evolve to adapt? It’s a fascinating question to think about because hospitality and travel have been intimately impacted by the world’s most groundbreaking and catalytic events: the 90’s dotcom boom and birth of OTA’s, 9/11 and its impact on travel regulations, Airbnb and its disruption of the hotel industry, and now with the Great Wealth Transfer underway, adoption of AI, and political conflict. Through all of these big changes, one thing remains constant: people have always paid for experiences - whether that’s dining out, traveling, or weekend socializing / entertainment. So while everything happening can feel unsettling, rest assured that those who are well prepared for the 4th industrial revolution are about to experience asymmetrical outcomes.

Consider this to be the opening thread discussing the future of AI and hospitality. More thoughts continued below…

I made a rare appearance as an interviewee on Zach Busekrus’ podcast called Behind The Stays. Zach is a 2x exited founder - his second start up StayWatch was acquired by Journey, where he now leads growth. Journey is a loyalty platform for independent hotels and private vacation rentals, and they raised a seed round from Lerer Hippeau, Slow Ventures, and Brian Kelly (The Points Guy) back in August. We chatted about what goes into a project such as One Beverly Hills, my takes on distribution vs scarcity, and where I think the future of ultra luxury hospitality is heading. Listen to the episode here.

You may have noticed that The Stanza has a new look. Huge thank you to Pedestal Design for understanding the brief and exceeding my expectations (+being professional and timely). If you’re looking for unique and well-researched branding design, I can’t recommend them enough.

Lastly, here’s an update on the 2026 podcast season.

If you’re new here, or want to catch up on the best of The Stanza, I’d recommend that you start here.

In today’s newsletter:

• I correctly predicted that Blackstone would invest in members clubs.

• Can Soho House successfully create a branded residential product?

• Serving a wealthy family from the Gulf and a recently exited Silicon Valley founder at the same hotel: two vastly different approaches united by AI and choreography

• What separates hospitality operators who will thrive in the AI era from those who won’t?

• Would you pay $40 for pasta made in a kitchen run by robots?

Read previous issues of The Stanza here.

No new listings this week.

Other opportunities currently live:

• For sale: Very chic & elegant 90-key boutique hotel in Nice

• Investment opportunity: Ultra-luxury hotel & branded residential development in downtown NYC

• For sale: Fully-entitled hospitality site in West Hollywood (~45,000 SF)

For all live listings & inquiries (hotels for sale, investment opportunities, open job roles), click here.

Advertise with The Stanza Classifieds: via classifieds@thestanzamedia.com.

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