W Hotels is part of Marriott International’s luxury group, which includes eight hotel brands including The Ritz-Carlton, Ritz-Carlton Reserve, Bvlgari Hotels & Resorts, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, EDITION Hotels, The Luxury Collection and JW Marriott. The brand has a long-standing presence in the fashion, music and creative communities, and its first hotel, opened on Lexington Avenue, was designed to capture the excitement of New York’s high society in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
Today, W Hotels is transforming its flagship properties, opening new hotels and evolving into a luxury lifestyle brand offering more diversified services to grow with existing and new creative communities around the world. To meet the expectations of today’s luxury traveller, W Hotels is expanding its cultural programming and elevated services, collaborating with fashion brands, musicians and artists based in every corner of the globe.
Global flagship hotel W New York Union Square was recently redesigned by architecture and design firm Rockwell Group, with an emphasis on public spaces and the hotel’s music programming, including the “W Presents” live performance series. An on-site professional recording studio and participation in global music festivals further enhance the brand’s cultural offerings for the creative community. At the newly opened W Budapest, the hotel partnered with Hungarian luxury brand Nanushka to create an exclusive collection during Budapest Central European Fashion Week, which was displayed in the hotel’s lobby.
The hotel brand also plans to meet its community in new locations, a strategic move that underscores the community’s desire for new experiences, with more than half of respondents to BoF/McKinsey consumer study “The State of Fashion 2024” saying they are looking for destinations they’ve never visited before.
The hotel’s new properties include W Rome opening in 2021, W Budapest and W Sydney opening in 2023, giving the hotel three locations known as cultural hotspots where their communities gather. W São Paulo, W Prague and W Punta Cana are also scheduled to open soon. Meanwhile, W Hotels continues to strengthen its identity in North America, unveiling a newly reimagined W Hollywood this fall, the brand’s West Coast flagship. W Hotels currently has 68 hotels in 29 countries around the world, with another 38 in the pipeline.
The brand’s evolution comes at an opportune time: global travel is recovering, with global travel flows expected to surpass pre-pandemic levels in 2024 for the first time since the outbreak of COVID-19, according to the State of Fashion 2024 report. The pandemic has also led to a shift in values, with consumers prioritizing experiences over material goods, leading to an increase in “workation” trips that combine both business and leisure travel, according to Barclays research.
BoF spoke with George Fleck, senior vice president and global brand leader at W Hotels, previously global brand leader for St. Regis, to learn more about the brand’s mission to learn from and grow with its core customers.
What do customers expect from W Hotels as a luxury brand today?
When W Hotels was first conceived in New York in the late ’90s, it was designed as a disruptive lifestyle brand with an emphasis on vibrant lobbies and bar scenes, and less on positioning itself as a true luxury destination.
Over the past 30 years, we have worked to reinvent the brand and elevate it into a global luxury lifestyle brand, maintaining all the elements that make it modern – design, products, fun and engaging programs, activations and collaborations – while also elevating the experience.
That luxury experience is reflected in the texture of the spaces, the amenities, the hotel facilities and most importantly, the proactive and impeccable service. Guests today consider this service fundamental, especially in a post-pandemic world where consumers are known to not only seek style but also substance behind it. We can’t just be a beautiful hotel; we need attention to detail and layers of service that make the experience of staying with us a memorable one.
How does W Hotels develop its services to meet consumer needs?
Today’s customers want authenticity. There are many hotel brands to choose from, in every segment and at every price point, but what do they really love? What will your guests remember most? A comfortable bed, great room service and a well-stocked minibar are all must-haves.
We think about the guest experience holistically, including evolving the traditional role of the concierge to position them as the next generation of insiders, differentiating them by providing personalized service that connects the guest to the hotel experience.
We also leverage social media platforms in terms of communicating with our guests because people no longer call hotels to check availability but turn to their favorite social channels to learn about destinations and their loved ones who have been there. In fact, we were one of the first hotel brands to launch an integrated TikTok strategy, which has enabled us to communicate with our target audience using a non-traditional medium and has seen positive results.
We also strive to ensure that all the talent working in these hotels is upskilled to meet consumer expectations – our employees undergo luxury service training – because we don’t want our customers to feel that this brand evolution is just a product relaunch.
How do you strategically balance attracting new customers while retaining your existing ones?
I recently spoke with a guest who has been a frequent guest at Union Square since the hotel opened, and she fondly recalled some of the most amazing experiences she had at W New York – Union Square, including seeing Boy George perform at the Underscore during her first trip to New York and eventually moving here.
We don’t want customers to feel that this brand evolution is just a product redesign, so our employees are undergoing premium service training.
Fast forward to now, she works as an executive and her appreciation for different experiences has changed. So has her income. But she still wants to be in a hotel where she feels like she can have a good time, a place with energy and vibrancy, without sacrificing her mature expectations and service experience.
So evolution doesn’t take away from the fun and playfulness aspect, it just ensures that all the other elements of a luxury experience are met.
What does today’s younger generation expect from a luxury lifestyle brand?
We know that this customer or target demographic (Gen Z and Millennials) is committed to building stronger connections both offline and online. They don’t want to be given a pretty marketing campaign that doesn’t match the experience. They can see through that.
We know that our customers want to work with brands that also have a positive impact on the communities they operate in, so we partner with relevant organizations that deliver on that expectation. For example, we recently partnered with Femme House, a non-profit organization founded by LP Giobbi, Global Music Director for W Hotels, that aims to provide opportunities in the music industry for women and gender non-conforming LGBTQ+ creators.
“It’s easy for us as a brand to sponsor a charity, but it’s harder to create meaningful community connections by providing access to the art they love to create. So a few weeks ago we hosted the first Femme House workshop at the W Seattle. It was a fantastic opportunity to shine a spotlight on creativity and use W Hotels to nurture this talent in a meaningful way.”
How do W Hotels incorporate collaborations with fashion brands into their hospitality experiences?
We have always collaborated with fashion designers and emerging talent. In 2011 we partnered with the CFDA. But more recently, our approach has been to work with local brands. For example, at W Budapest we partnered with well-known Hungarian brand Nanushka to create an exclusive capsule collection inspired by local culture and history. We didn’t want guests travelling to Budapest from London or New York to find the same items from the same brands that they could buy in London or New York.
Gen-Z and Millennials don’t want to be subjected to a pretty marketing campaign that doesn’t match the experience – they can see through that.
Another collaboration, now in its second year, is with Los Angeles-based unisex apparel brand Sunchasers, who launched a capsule collection at W South Beach and W Ibiza, a hand-dyed collection with a creative and artistic approach that matches the bohemian charm of these summer destinations and the hotel. The brand also collaborated with Valentino at W Aspen last season for a pop-up winter/ski collection.
What are you excited about for the future of W Hotels?
We recently opened a store in Sydney, our third Australian facility, bringing our footprint to three cities – Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane – incorporating superior product and service experiences in all three cities.
Another chapter I’m excited about with the brand is our foray into the all-inclusive space, which we’re doing with W Punta Cana. We’re entering a market where brands need to focus not just on the music and entertainment aspects, but also on wellness, great food and drink and experiences, so it’s been fun to think about what we can do to bring that vibe into the adult all-inclusive space.
Finally, in Europe, we’re excited about our expansion in Italy. We have a fantastic property with W Rome and we’re about to open W Florence, W Milan and W Naples. We have W Hotels across Italy and the products and experiences they offer are going to create great excitement for our European guests.
This is a paid sponsored feature offered by W Hotels as part of their BoF partnership.
