The best hotels are a destination unto themselves. On this week’s episode of Unpacked, AFAR senior deputy editor Jennifer Flowers reveals the 31 properties that made our 2024 Best New Hotels list and why booking a hotel is the most important choice you’ll make for your trip.
Read the full transcript here: https://rebrand.ly/oz85205
Explore the full best new hotels list: https://rebrand.ly/6crxbdv
Discover more episodes of the Unpacked by AFAR podcast here:
https://link.chtbl.com/AFARYouTubeUnpacked
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Read the full transcript here: https://rebrand.ly/oz85205
Explore the full best new hotels list: https://rebrand.ly/6crxbdv
Discover more episodes of the Unpacked by AFAR podcast here:
https://link.chtbl.com/AFARYouTubeUnpacked
----
CONNECT WITH AFAR
Afar.com is a digital and print magazine that publishes travel tips, guides, news, and stories: https://www.afar.com
Get updates on the latest articles, travel news, and more from AFAR by signing up for the AFAR newsletter: https://afar.com/newsletters
Follow AFAR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfarMedia
Follow AFAR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/afarmedia
Follow AFAR on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afarmedia
Follow AFAR on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/afarmedia
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TravelTranscript
00:00 Hey everyone, and welcome to the third season of Unpacked, a podcast by afar.
00:04 I'm Aislinn, and as you can probably tell by this giant microphone in front of my face,
00:08 I host the show. Every week on the podcast, we unpack a different tricky topic in travel,
00:15 and this week is no exception. This is Unpacked.
00:18 Hi Jen, how are you?
00:26 Hey Aislinn, I'm good. How are you doing?
00:30 Good. Welcome back to Unpacked. I'm sorry we're not doing this in person
00:34 like we had tried to last week.
00:36 Oh, I know, but it's kind of the nature of this company, right? We're always somewhere,
00:41 and it's kind of great, but it was so good to see you recently in Toronto.
00:45 Yeah, yeah. And are you back home in the Pacific Northwest? Like where in the world are you right
00:49 now?
00:50 I am. So I'm back in the Pacific Northwest in my base on Orcas Island, Washington,
00:55 and the San Juan Islands from Archipelago, which it's just my favorite place in the world,
00:59 and I'm very lucky to be able to spend a lot of time here when I'm not in New York.
01:03 You are living the dream.
01:05 Well, you are our resident hotel expert, and I love that you have a very special relationship
01:13 with hotels. Would you mind sharing this journey of how you grew up and how you kind of entered
01:18 this hotel space?
01:19 Yeah, you know, hotels are a really special thing for me. You know, I kind of entered the travel
01:25 publishing world.
01:26 Kind of just with a wanderlust, you know, like we all have, right? But I kind of like look back and
01:31 think maybe it was like it was meant to be, and I was meant to kind of have this role.
01:35 My father was a hotelier. I was actually born and raised in the hotel world. My first home was a
01:40 hotel in Manila in the Philippines. My dad was the GM of a hotel there. He was also the GM of the
01:46 Plaza Hotel, which is a very famous hotel in New York City. So I spent my childhood with kind of a
01:53 foot in Asia and a foot in the United States following my dad's career basically and living
01:58 in hotels most of the time and kind of experiencing luxury hospitality firsthand, but also kind of
02:03 from this sort of insider back of the house point of view. So yeah, funny, like a lot of people joke
02:09 that I was kind of a little Eloise from the Plaza Hotel just because I actually did live in the
02:13 Plaza Hotel, which was in hindsight, amazing. I mean, you know, I was eight years old and I had
02:18 a sauna in my bathroom and couldn't care less. And I look back and I'm like, why was it wasted
02:23 on this eight year old? Like I would have been in there all the time had I been living there today.
02:28 Maybe someday you can go back to living in the plaza and then you'll really use that sauna in
02:33 your bathroom. I feel like you wrote a story and didn't you talk about like your mom having
02:39 like a rice cooker in your hotel room? Yeah, I did write a lot about how to create a sense
02:44 of home in all of these places that are not home, right? Or like what home means when you're
02:49 moving every, you know, two to three years and my mom's rice cooker was that item, right? Like she
02:54 never let us order room service. We were never allowed to do any of the fancy hotel things
02:58 whenever we lived in. But the rice cooker for me was sort of that symbol of we're going to make
03:04 dinner like a normal family, even though you can order like beef tartare downstairs or whatever it
03:09 is. Yeah, it was like kind of my this is home. My mom's rice cooker is home. I mean, very impressive
03:14 on her part that she managed to kind of create this consistency for you. Yeah, as you're growing
03:20 up. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Well, you are uniquely positioned as as a Fars Hotels expert.
03:27 What do you love about hotels in this industry? What's your passion? Well, if you think about
03:33 whenever you travel, you think about like, just think about like the amount of money that you
03:38 spend on a trip, right? Of course, there's the the air ticket, which can be expensive depending on
03:44 the time you book and everything. But one of the biggest things we're going to spend on
03:47 is our hotel. And if you think about the impact of that on the place you're visiting,
03:51 the people you're going to see in that destination, there's so much of like a broader impact. So like
03:57 the place you choose to stay a is going to impact how you experience that destination.
04:02 And it's also going to have an impact on the people in the places that you're visiting. So
04:07 think about all the staff people that people hire at hotels, the local suppliers, the way they
04:12 operate, whether it's sustainably or not, what kind of vibe they create for locals and restaurants.
04:16 So if you, for instance, care about local ownership, and if you care about sustainability,
04:20 however, the hotel acts is what you're buying into. So I think it's a very important part of the
04:26 a financial decision, be experiential part of your trip and see the impact that you'll have on your
04:31 destination. I do love that afar put so much emphasis on that aspect of like, how does this
04:38 hotel and your experience there impact the local community and how are they pulled in?
04:43 It's certainly one of the key things we think about when we're looking at hotels for our,
04:46 especially our best new hotels list. Yes, which we are here to talk about today. So how did you
04:53 approach that list? And how did things like that local impact factor into your decision making?
04:58 So these things, I think, you know, there's more choice than ever when it comes to hotels. Like
05:04 one, a new luxury hotel opens every day, it seems. And I think for the traveler, especially for the
05:10 afar traveler, we want those enriching experiences. But again, we want experiences that are also
05:15 benefiting our destinations and bringing kind of positive impact to it. So what we think about,
05:22 we kind of, I mean, it's kind of crazy, we canvass the entire world for hotels that we feel are real
05:27 game changers in their in the places where they are. So in London, where there's a lot of hotels,
05:32 we think about what's already there and what this new hotel is bringing and what how they're maybe
05:37 like elevating what what you can already find how they are creating new, more sustainable operations,
05:43 how they are hiring better. So we look at everything. I mean, we also want the most
05:49 incredible experiences of destinations around the world. So if you're going to Nepal, we want that
05:54 hotel to unlock a new side of Nepal for you. If you're going to be in New York, we want that New
06:01 York hotel to reveal something else that you didn't already know about the city. So we kind of
06:07 look for that special like experiential quality. But again, we're also looking at the back of the
06:11 house and saying, how are you operating? Who are you hiring? What kinds of sustainability practices
06:17 are you are you employing? Like all of those things kind of factor into this list that we
06:22 call and we were very careful about calling the list into a very kind of small, well curated
06:28 selection of places that we ultimately hope will inspire people to travel to those places. We see
06:34 them as these hotels as reasons enough to travel to those those places. And then I love that idea
06:41 that then the hotel is one of the keys to unlocking that destination. I mean, it just kind of
06:46 magnifies the impact that they can have. So there are 31 hotels on this list, which is, I believe,
06:52 twice as many as there were last year. What was behind that kind of change in that increase?
06:58 So actually, this is not that big of a list. A lot of publications do these lists of maybe 100
07:04 hotels, we chose 31 hotels, which is actually bigger for us, it's more than double the size
07:09 of the list that we had last year. But it's still still pretty small in the grand scheme of things.
07:14 And the reason we keep them small is because we want to really, really kind of nail like which
07:20 hotels were true game changers in their destinations and which ones are really setting a new standard.
07:24 31 hotels allows us to to reach a broader scope of types of luxury experiences. So that can range
07:32 from a tented camp in Africa to a beautiful old war office building that was restored in London,
07:40 where Winston Churchill once made wartime decisions. Wow, that is incredible. And one
07:47 of the things that I do appreciate about a lot of the work that we do just in general at Afar is
07:51 that we vet these things in person, right? We have boots on the ground, people on the ground that can
07:56 help us understand why something's important. And I believe that you've you visited several of these
08:01 hotels last year. Did you share the ones that you you met? Absolutely. So yeah, I mean, a few of
08:08 them. One of the things I mean, you know how much I love Africa, Iselin, I talk about it all the time.
08:14 And last year, last year, I actually got to do a hard hat tour of Luwapi in South Africa. It's in
08:21 the Kalahari Desert. It's in. Oh, it's amazing. It's this beautiful landscape that was rewilded.
08:27 It was former farming land that was that was turned into a private reserve. And you have
08:31 rhinos, you have lions, you have like all of the all like pangolins. It's like actually a really
08:36 great place to see pangolins. And they all oh, it's amazing. And they only had two types of
08:43 accommodations there. And they're adding this third very exclusive private accommodation where
08:47 you get your own car you have you have you can kind of do a more family centric vacation if you
08:52 want to or a group centric one. And the footprint is so low when you're there, you're still not going
08:58 to run into any vehicles outside of maybe like one other vehicle from another lodge like you
09:02 have the place to yourself and the conservation story there is incredible. So just for me to be
09:07 able to see and I love a hard hat tour. Like I'm always in these hotels before. Yeah, it's one of
09:13 those things where when I get in before they the hotels open, I feel this sense of ownership when
09:19 the hotel does really well. I'm like, Oh, yes, I remember I remember seeing when you didn't even
09:23 have the bathtubs in the rooms or whatever. I mean, it's like that kind of backstory thing that
09:28 kind of helps me get jazzed about a place and it really helps me understand how much effort goes
09:32 into these places. And I mean, hotels are multi year, expensive projects that don't have a quick
09:39 ROI, you have to have an owner that has the buy in on all of the values that that hotel company
09:44 brings. So it's a really interesting kind of back the house process. I also see that the Carlton can
09:49 in France and that's like the can film festival can. The Carlton was one of those I mean, still,
09:57 it's got this beautiful, kind of really ornate exterior, a lot of celebrities have stayed there,
10:02 and it's had this reinvention that you would not believe it's so incredible. It's got all the
10:07 trappings of kind of modern luxury, like you feel like you're part of history, but you also feel
10:13 you're like you're getting taken care of in a contemporary way. And I just remember like,
10:17 one small tweak in a room configuration can change everything. So the Carlton can has these
10:23 beautiful views out to the sea, like from the windows with these like kind of wrought iron
10:28 balconies and they have they now have this, this kind of seat this chase lounge that sits right in
10:33 front of that view. There's like, no mistake that that is the most important part of your guestroom
10:38 experiences to take all of that in. So I just loved being able to experience that firsthand
10:43 and say, Yeah, I can't think of a better way to experience can it was like looking at a postcard.
10:48 It was so beautiful. Well, I have not stayed at any of these hotels, but there are several that
10:52 I'm kind of currently obsessed with. So for example, the Kona village on the island of Hawaii,
10:57 and they have such a cool sustainability story, which I also know is very important to you. It's
11:01 important to me. And it's both a kind of a cultural and an environmental story. I'm actually checking
11:07 into the Kona village. It's a Rosewood resort in early April. So I will get first hand knowledge.
11:13 So so we had a reviewer go she fell in love with it. This is one I've been following for a long
11:19 time. This is a hotel that my so my mother is from Hawaii. And she, so she knows I mean, she
11:24 this is a hotel that was an icon since the 60s. Like everyone knows Kona village, this beautiful
11:30 it's on the island of Hawaii. It's all about swaying palms. And it's like right by these blue
11:35 waters of a bay. I mean, the setting could not be more magical. There even like ancient petroglyph
11:41 fields nearby and everything. It's pretty incredible. So sadly, a tsunami destroyed the
11:46 resort in 2011. It was really, really tragic. And Rosewood hotels came in to do a reimagination and
11:54 a renovation of the property. The thing that they did, which I love is they brought in a cultural
11:59 community composed of Hawaii Island residents and honored elders who could really take ownership in
12:06 terms of what that hotel hospitality experience would be like and how that hotel would interact
12:11 with the destination. So it was really incredible to see Rosewood step up and say like, we're not
12:15 just going to reimagine this and put new bells and whistles on it. We really want to create an
12:21 experience that feels good to locals as much as it does to people who are coming to visit. And
12:27 there's a lot of things that are going to be reflected in the guest experiences. So there's
12:32 a lot of like preservation focused organizations that are going to allow visitors to come in and
12:38 see monk seal rehab centers and understand like the landscape and the history and the culture
12:44 better and everything. And so all of that is sort of a co-authorship. And I think co-authorship is
12:48 so important when you're looking at places with a lot of indigenous roots and a lot of indigenous
12:53 storytelling. It's like who's telling those stories. And it's very clear that Kona Village
12:57 wants that to be in the hands of Native Hawaiians. So that's incredible. I'm really looking forward
13:03 to seeing it myself. I also was curious if you are seeing more and more hotels that are having
13:10 these conversations that are really bringing local communities in especially, you know, perhaps
13:14 marginalized or indigenous communities. Is that more of a trend that you've been seeing?
13:18 Absolutely. I think that if you want to be a hotel that speaks to an afar audience,
13:25 when that audience member pulls back the curtain, they must be able to see some sort of engagement
13:30 with any sort of local communities or cultures where they're located. So I mean, Kona Village
13:37 is a great example. I just think so many of our readers care about where their dollars are going
13:43 and what their dollars are supporting. And that local engagement is, I think, essential now.
13:48 And it's cool to see that hotels are no longer so much imposing their vision and really kind of
13:55 carrying forward that conversation. Well, you mentioned Nepal earlier, and I also am obsessed
14:01 with the new Shintomani Mustang there. Why is it so unique?
14:05 So there's so many things about this hotel. So the person behind it is Bill Bensley. He's a
14:12 designer and architect. He's based in Bangkok. I've met him a couple of times. He's a really
14:16 awesome, like, out there guy. He is a very prolific hotel designer, and he has designed
14:23 some of my favorite hotels around the world. I mean, there's the, I mean, just trying to think
14:27 of like the Siam and Bangkok. There's a hotel called Shintomani Wild in Cambodia, where,
14:33 get this crazy story, he and a business partner pretended that they were loggers at a logging
14:40 auction for forest land in Cambodia. And then they transformed this little like 500 acre plot
14:45 of land that was supposed to go to loggers into a conservation area where there's a tented camp.
14:51 And so there's a tented camp in Cambodia. There's wildlife that goes through it. There's all these
14:55 conservation projects. They actually brought someone in from South Africa to run the place
15:00 as a GM because they want to have that sort of conservation mindset. He also has a place opening
15:05 in Republic of Congo in the next year or so. So Bill Bensley, he's so sensitive to
15:11 conservation, to cultures, to the kind of preservation of lands and biodiversity. So
15:16 I just love everything he does. He's very sustainable, and his designs are so dreamy
15:22 and fun and out there. So when I heard that he was opening in Mustang, Nepal, which is in this very,
15:28 like, kind of less visited area of Nepal, there isn't a lot of luxury there. I stopped in my
15:34 tracks and absolutely could not wait to hear what this would be like. A few writers have been through
15:39 and we sent a reviewer and I mean, it sounds incredible. It's sitting at 9,200 square feet on
15:46 this like rocky mountainside. There are these like suites that are furnished with all this beautiful
15:52 kind of Himalayan inspired interiors and architecture. It's just all Bill Bensley.
15:58 It's very responsible and sustainable. They have a lot of connections to local communities,
16:02 which I really love. And it brings a new level of luxury to a place that doesn't have a lot of
16:07 foot traffic yet. So it'll bring a new audience, I think, to that area, which I'm excited about.
16:14 How cool is this on your horizon as a personal visit?
16:18 Oh my goodness, as soon as I can get to Nepal, this will be my first stop. I just can't wait to
16:24 experience the region through the lenses of Bill Bensley and all of the local stakeholders he
16:29 brought in. I mean, I have mad respect for anyone who would go in pretending to be a logger and then
16:35 flip it around and make a conservation project like you got to follow somebody like that.
16:39 I know. That's incredible. Yeah. And when I heard that, I was like, you've got my vote,
16:43 Bill Bensley, anytime you open a hotel. And watch for that Republic of Congo one,
16:48 keep an eye out for that because it's going to be another big game changer for that region.
16:53 I was really impressed by the restoration of the Raffles London at the Owo. Is this
16:58 one of the most historical places on the list? Because it kind of read that way to me.
17:02 Oh my goodness, absolutely. Thank you for asking about this one, because I'm so excited about it.
17:08 Last year, was it last year, I visited the hotel as I like to do on a hard hat tour before it opened.
17:15 The hard hat tour took three hours.
17:19 Because that's unusual.
17:21 It is unusual. Usually a hard hat tour, you kind of like pop through a couple of rooms,
17:26 you see the dining spaces, you see the spa and everything. But there is so much history in this
17:30 building and so much to say that it took and it's so huge. I mean, so the Owo stands for
17:36 Old War Office. It's where Winston Churchill presided. Lawrence of Arabia worked here.
17:43 MI 15 and 16 were both kind of born here, the building cameos and five James Bond pics,
17:49 which is crazy. Yeah, it's incredible. There are guest rooms, there's 120 guest rooms,
17:55 and there's there are residences to the owners or the Hinduja family. They're one of the most
18:00 affluent families in the UK. And one of the ideas behind this hotel was to leave a legacy behind in
18:07 London. And I mean, I can't think of a better legacy. This is like incredible location near
18:14 the horse guards and Buckingham Palace. The building itself was done with so much care and
18:20 love. I mean, you have these like ornate banisters that are made with with stone and you have these
18:27 like beautiful carved wooden interiors. I mean, I remember walking into like a closet of a suite,
18:33 thinking it was a suite. And the person giving me the tour said, No, no, no, we are in a closet.
18:39 And it was the size of two of my New York apartments. It was gigantic. So this place is
18:46 very special just from the opulence of it, but also from the history of it. I mean, you'd see
18:51 why it's like a movie setting kind of place. And yeah, yeah, yeah. And Winston Churchill made these
18:56 huge wartime decisions there. You feel kind of like you're part of the Buckingham Palace story
19:00 as well, because you're so nearby. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. And it was a multi year
19:04 restoration project with a lot of love and care. Raffles is the luxury hotel group that's running
19:10 it. And they're doing a very fine job. Our own Anya van Bremsen went and reviewed it and she
19:16 fell in love. She loved the hotel and she loved everything that they they did with it. And they
19:20 have a Mauro Calagreco restaurant, which is a big, big marquee restaurant for them. So yeah,
19:25 no, I think it'll really turn it and turn the White Hall that kind of sleepy at night White
19:29 Hall is Anya likes to describe it into a dining and drinking hub. I mean, can I just go and like
19:35 book the hotel or the closet? It sounds like you don't even need the room. Can I just
19:43 the closet's fine? Whatever. Have they set aside parts of the hotel as specifically kind of
19:50 preservation that are a multi museum like the idea is to live in the historic parts of the hotel.
19:57 So there isn't anything that feel that I think that's the great part about hotels, by the way,
20:01 the ones that are really historic is that you are in a living piece of history. So they like hotel
20:07 companies that restore these these hotels in a in a way that is exciting. They're usually giving
20:13 people access to those rooms and letting them live in them. I mean, you're like kind of living next
20:18 to the fireplace that was there originally, right? So there's less of the sort of cordoned off museum
20:23 feel and more of the like, I get to have this all to myself, which is what I think the OO did so
20:28 well. Well, kind of broadening out to some, you know, categories that people might travel for.
20:34 So what would you recommend from the list for people who really love design or architecture?
20:39 This is such a fun one. So one that immediately comes to mind. So there's a designer named Martin
20:47 Brudnitsky, who he's a Swedish interiors maven. He is very prolific in the hotel world right now.
20:53 But he's done some really amazing projects that have stood out on our list. So a couple of them
20:58 are the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, which is all about the sort of like Gilded Age glamour of
21:03 New York history. And then the Le Grand Mazarin in Paris. So now both of these hotels, if you look
21:08 at them, they're all about like bright colors and maximalism. That's a huge trend that I'm seeing
21:13 right now in the hotel world. Gone are the quiet kind of beige on beige spaces. I mean, they're
21:18 still around, but there's definitely more of a move towards like this maximalist kind of
21:23 sophisticated maximalism where you're getting colors on colors and patterns on patterns. I mean,
21:29 you're seeing this also at a new hotel that just opened in New York called the Warren Street Hotel,
21:33 which is definitely another one to watch for the next year. But this maximalism trend is kind of
21:39 in full force. And Martin Brudnitsky is a perfect example of that. And the Grand Mazarin in Paris
21:44 and the Fifth Avenue Hotel are two musts to check out on our list. Another one that I feel has a
21:50 different flavor, and it's kind of different take on design is the Violino D'Oro in Venice. Now,
21:55 this is a family owned Italian company that opened a hotel in Venice with the idea of showcasing
22:02 local artisans. So everything you touch from the Rubelli fabrics to the hand placed Venetian
22:07 Seminato Terrazzo flooring to the Venini chandeliers are all sourced locally or regionally.
22:13 I mean, everything you experience in the hotel will have a story and you're probably going to
22:17 want to buy the tiles and the Murano glass chandeliers. And the great thing is that the
22:23 owners know exactly how to source them. So if you are looking to renovate your home,
22:27 go to Violino D'Oro and just take your pick and go visit the ateliers. It's pretty amazing.
22:33 You know, bring a couple of extra suitcases or get ready to ship things back.
22:37 Have a wonderful stay and redecorate your house. So those sound like fantastic places for people
22:45 who travel specifically for design or art. What about people who want to be immersed in the
22:50 outdoors or have a nature experience? So we were just talking about Shintomani Mustang. I think
22:57 that is actually an amazing way to get into the Himalayas, the Nepalese Himalayas. I mean, you're
23:03 in this kingdom. I mean, so Mustang is a Himalayan kingdom that was only fully open to Western tourists
23:10 in 1992. So day trips or drives to ancient mud villages, tours around Buddhist pilgrimage sites,
23:18 hikes to glacier lakes that end with these picnic lunches that are soundtracked by the
23:23 rumble of a distant avalanche, as one of our writers describes. So you're right there next
23:29 to nature while also having this very kind of cushy luxury experience. In the States,
23:34 there's Ulum Moab, which is a spinoff of Under Canvas. If you've heard of Under Canvas, they're
23:39 all about kind of glamping tent and camp experience. Now Ulum in Moab, Utah is the
23:44 next level luxury of that. But you're still fully connected to nature in that beautiful sort of
23:49 rust colored landscape. But you have a king size bed, and you have a bathroom with a rain shower,
23:55 and you have seating areas with West Elm slingback chairs. You know, it's a very luxury experience,
24:02 but all very thoughtfully and sustainably created, but also you're fully kind of immersed in nature.
24:09 And of course, Luwapi in South Africa. Again, this conservation project is so special,
24:15 and you're seeing endangered rhinos, you're seeing lions, you're seeing pangolins at night,
24:21 and you get access to all these researchers. You can unlock the stories in nature that you might
24:26 not already see. I mean, when I was at Luwapi, I met a PhD candidate who is working on puff adders,
24:33 which is a type of snake, a very poisonous type of snake. And she is so passionate about it. And
24:39 she actually she tags snakes, she puts like little tracking devices and snakes and can find one for
24:44 you. And it's so funny, usually, usually when I'm in the African bush, I am looking to avoid snakes,
24:49 but she's like, No, no, no, no, I will take you to one. And I'm like, Okay. Yeah. Is that too
24:55 close to nature for you, Aislinn? It was for me, but I don't know. But I love the idea of having
25:01 access to all of those people who can do that storytelling. I mean, they're hard core
25:05 conservationists. So yeah, there are a lot on our list that really kind of tap into those outdoorsy
25:09 nature experiences if you're looking for that. How cool. I think I might be swayed by that person's
25:15 passion and be like, I do think I should see a puff adder because I'm here and maybe I'll never
25:19 see one again. And you can protect me from it if it goes crazy. Yeah, you get a little more empathy
25:24 for our certain, you know, our danger noodle friends, as it were. That takes all the sting
25:32 out of the danger noodles. Wonderful. Well, okay. What about say something like the category of
25:39 wellness, which does seem to have become bigger and just, you know, people seem to be seeking
25:44 that out more. So if I were to seek it out, I would want to go to the Six Senses in India,
25:48 because wow, that just sounds incredible. Is that one of the places that you would recommend?
25:54 You are spot on on the wellness trends. So and Six Senses Vana is like the perfect example of
25:59 this. So it's what's interesting right now. So you have in the hospitality world, you have
26:04 destination spas, which are spas first, and then hospitality experiences second, right? So you're
26:10 not there for the hotel room, and then a spa treatment, you're there for the well being
26:15 experience. And I'm seeing the line kind of blurring between the two a lot. And Six Senses
26:20 Vana is a good example of that. So it was actually the kind of passion project of an owner who spent
26:27 many years creating a wellness experience that was not just Ayurveda, but it was rooted in like
26:32 global well being practices, Chinese medicine, etc. And so he was running it for a couple of
26:38 years. And then he partnered with Six Senses, which it's kind of globally synonymous with like
26:42 luxury and well being and kind of deeper dives into well being if you're going to a resort,
26:47 but not in the way where you have to sacrifice everything. So you can still have a glass of wine
26:52 with your detox experience, you can kind of dial it up and dial it back. So Six Senses and Vana
27:00 partnered up and now Six Senses is managing the property and bringing a little bit more of a Six
27:05 Senses ethos to it while also maintaining all of the amazing principles that the original owner,
27:10 the owner, the current owner created. So it kind of encourages someone who's like a little bit more
27:15 inquisitive about what it means to have a well being experience. I mean, there are a couple of
27:21 things that are a little bit more kind of destination spa than hotels. So for example,
27:26 cell phones are banned in public spaces. Everyone wears white pajamas that the property provides.
27:32 So there's, yeah, there's definitely that feeling you're there with intention for sure. But it's
27:37 also got that Six Senses ethos where you're also there to enjoy the region in the scenic foothills
27:43 of the Himalayas. So I think that's brilliant. And we're going to see more of that. Wow. I love
27:48 it. You could also choose to have a glass of wine, you know, should you need that in front of you.
27:53 Exactly. Well, I wanted to zoom back out a little bit. First, what do you look for in a new hotel?
28:02 So whenever I'm looking at a new hotel, I'm looking at that game changing angle
28:07 in the place where it is. So that can vary from place to place. So what
28:12 is that new hotel bringing that isn't already there? And also the guest experience, you know,
28:16 ultimately, the idea is for the hotel to unlock a destination for a traveler. So what are they doing
28:22 for the traveler that will help the traveler see that destination in a new way. So it could be
28:28 an experience on site, it could be something outside of the hotel, it could just be having
28:33 a really good concierge who can say, go here and not here. And if you're looking for this,
28:38 this is where you should go. And, you know, even service, right? Like if you think about
28:43 time as an asset and something we value in our travels, a concierge can be the person who can
28:49 unlock time for you. They can fix an issue at the hotel, they can help you with an airplane ticket
28:55 that you need to change, and you can save the time to spend in the destination. And these days,
28:59 there are hotels, I'm thinking of a hotel in Paris right now that actually have local art curators
29:04 and people who are experts in their destination so that they can benefit the traveler while they're
29:09 staying there. That's so I never would have thought about asking if a concierge could
29:14 help a travel hiccup like a flight that needs to be changed or something. I mean, there's that.
29:18 There's also just, you know, where is that hotel? Like, is it in a place that that you couldn't
29:24 otherwise visit if there wasn't a hotel? I mean, one special one on our list is Southern Ocean
29:29 Lodge that was actually a victim of the wildfires in Australia a few years ago. And they've just
29:34 reopened after a painstaking renovation with more sustainability and more just kind of incredible
29:41 ways for people to experience their landscapes. But like, it is one of the only places of that
29:47 kind of level to stay on Kangaroo Island in Australia. And it's a really special place with
29:52 I mean, wild kangaroos and like all the that is one of the ones I cannot wait to get to actually,
29:59 well, that kind of leads nicely into you talk about how hotels are destinations unto themselves
30:06 sometimes. And I was just curious to know why that is true. Why you think that's true for you?
30:11 Well, if you just imagine a hotel in London, where like Winston Churchill made his wartime decisions
30:18 or a hotel in Venice, where everything you touch from the fabrics to the floors tells you a story
30:24 of a local kind of historic atelier. I think sometimes we think that hotels are for outsiders,
30:29 but the best hotels are actually the ultimate insiders. They often help tell stories of the
30:34 people in places where they're located. So when you're sleeping in the Villa D'Oro in Venice,
30:41 you're surrounded by the work of local artisans. When you're staying at the Riyadh Rosemary and
30:46 Marrakesh, you are you are immersed in that beautiful Riyadh culture in the middle of the
30:52 Medina. So I definitely think that when you check into a hotel, it can actually be the destination.
30:58 So I guess my question is, like, you must be on the road all the time. Because how can you not
31:05 want to check out every single one of these? It must be so challenging to actually stay at home
31:11 on orcas. It is very Yeah, I am on the road a lot. And it's definitely one of those challenges of
31:17 balance. But I mean, luckily, we can work from anywhere. And my favorite thing to do is to
31:22 sometimes just check into a hotel and experience all the hospitality there. Like so many of us
31:27 spend a couple of hours to work from hotel WFH. Yes, I want to work from hotel more.
31:35 I think we all should.
31:37 We all should. Yeah. Looking ahead, what can we expect in 2024? In terms of hotel openings?
31:44 You mentioned a couple. Are there any that you're like really excited about?
31:47 Oh my goodness. Well, I just came out with an article with my springtime picks,
31:52 although that list was so long that I had to whittle it down to 10. And it was very difficult.
31:57 A few of the highlights. I mean, there's a really cool Mandarin Oriental coming out in Mayfair in
32:04 London, which I'm really excited for. It's a more intimate kind of small hotel, which I love. And
32:10 then also in London, there's the Emery Hotel, which comes from the Mayborn Group, which is one
32:15 of London's most exciting. I mean, they have clarages, they have the Barclay, they have the
32:20 Connacht. I mean, their hotel collection in London is already really respected and historic and
32:25 admired and everything. And I cannot wait to see the Emery. It's supposed to be attached through
32:29 like a skybridge to the Barclay Hotel, which a lot of people know if they know London. And I mean,
32:35 this is it's gonna be really special. It's going to be very much for the person who doesn't want
32:40 to be seen who wants to be more kind of like off the beaten path. It's like, it's going to be
32:45 incredible. I'm really excited about those. There's also a Seneva Secret opening up in the Maldives.
32:50 So Seneva was created by a really visionary guy named Sonu Shivdasani. And he's all about
32:56 well being and sustainability. He has hotels in the Maldives already. And this hotel is meant to
33:02 be a little bit farther off the beaten path, family friendly, but just a little bit kind of
33:06 farther off if you want to get out kind of really immerse yourself in nature.
33:10 Sounds like 2025 will be just as challenging in terms of whittling down this list and trying to
33:16 pick the best new hotels. Aislinn, I think about hotels every single day. And I promise you that
33:22 this list, I think about all the hotel stories that I'm not telling, and I lose sleep over it.
33:28 So yes, it's definitely a labor of love and one that we dedicate a lot of time and obsession to
33:34 for sure. We're a bunch of hotel obsessives here at afar.
33:36 Well, thank you for sharing your passion and your obsessions with us. I really appreciate it.
33:42 Thanks, Aislinn. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
33:45 You too. Okay, that was our show. Don't forget to hit like and subscribe on your way out.
33:51 And I'll include a link to the podcast below.
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