The tension between scale and discretion
One of the biggest themes across any luxury business
Good evening and happy Friday everyone,
Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts about wellness programs in hotels. A lot of you either own, develop, or manage hotels and are trying to understand how to adapt to the broader “wellness” trend. I think it’s safe to say that wellness programs will vastly differ according to brand and market, and therefore we can’t fall back on having a “playbook”.
Here are some interesting messages/comments some of you shared:
I’m sick of the clinical. I don’t want a hotel/doctor, I want to go to a hotel to be held. I wanna be stroked and caressed and feel like I’m returning to the womb, not be shoved out on a podium to perform. Wellness in hotels should nourishing, nurturing and makes you feel safe enough to rest your head and your nervous system. It should be an extension of your mother tucking you in bed at night. Isn’t that what we all really want?
Wellness as a concept will be so expected in a few decades that every hotel will need to invest in upgrading there. But hotels will be focused on passive not active wellness. That way people don’t have to think about it. So I’m as bearish on wellness focused hotels as I am wellness membership clubs.
I pitched an entire upcoming project on the idea that a plate of pasta in Italy (i.e. overlooking the Portofino coast at the Splendido) can make you feel just as well...or likely more...as any formal “wellness” ritual.
I think framing wellness through these moments is essential when we talk about it in the context of hotels.
Being in the wellness space I don’t think travel and hotels need to double down on what the customer is doing at home but a well thought out exercise facility does pay off…and most hotels completely miss this!
I think hotels need to figure out what Wellness to their customers mean vs what's trendy. As in most trends, words are used without any implementation for the demographic served. If you are a boutique hotel stay in your lane with your offers. The same for larger properties. But most of all there is NO Wellness if the staff isn't taken care of.
I thought these comments reflect plain logic when it comes to implementing something people are excited about but have yet to fully adopt or understand. Some standout points:
Most hotels miss on the gym. It’s worth it to have a gym that’s good enough to use daily. Casa Cipriani New York is one of the best hotel gyms I’ve seen in a while. A solid hotel gym is a very good and simple start.
“There is no wellness if the staff isn’t taken care of.” Spot on.
Feelings resulting from nervous system regulation and being taken care of are powerful ways to implement “wellness”
As per usual, my inbox is open for the ongoing discussion.
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 is patient capital making a £1B bet on Mayfair while everyone else waits for price discovery?
Imagine you're building the next Aspen. Do you think it's more profitable to preserve a resort town's mythology or to overwrite it with a lifestyle brand?
If 81% of young travelers are booking trips based on what they binge watch, should luxury hotels chase the spotlight or protect the scarcity that makes them desirable in the first place?
When billionaire technocrats start occupying the front row at fashion week, is that the death of industry’s allure, or the kind of courtship with capital that could become the industry’s saving grace?
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Purple’s Olivier Zahm captures exactly how I feel about Milan:
“It’s been more than thirty years that I come to Milan Fashion Week, and still — I am disarmed.
Season after season, show after show, I return for fashion, of course. But I’m in love with the city. I photograph Milan more than I photograph the collections. Courtyards hidden behind austere façades. A fragment of terrazzo. The way the light settles on soft colored walls at the end of the afternoon. It never exhausts itself. Neither do I.
Milan does not seduce easily. It withholds. It is arrogant in its discretion. Secret in its luxurious architecture. Warm in ways that are never demonstrative. Complex, layered, almost hermetic at first glance — and then suddenly generous if you know how to look. It is a city of interiors, of conversations behind heavy wood doors, of elegance that refuses to explain itself.
After more than three decades, I still feel like I am discovering it for the first time. The same streets, different moods. The same facades, different emotions. A permanent rediscovery.
Sometimes I wonder — should I make a book one day? A personal archive of these marble geometries, these quiet architectural luxuries, these Milanese stones and tiles? Or am I simply noticing the obvious — that Milan has always been this beautiful! And of course, a major book has already been devoted to these preserved entrances — their geometry, their rationalist purity, their Liberty ornement, their elegant staircases — a privilege reserved for residents vigilantly protected by a mean concierge.
I love Milan. I love its people — their intelligence, their irony, their restraint. I love its fashion — rigorous and decorative, commercial and emotional beneath the surface. And the food is a kind of madness.
Milan is not loud. It is not immediate. It reveals itself slowly. And that is why, after thirty years, I am still looking.”
