IHG's Six Senses Is Adding Luxury Global Membership Clubs

25.08.2023 - 13:45 / skift.com / Peden Doma Bhutia

Six Senses, the operator of luxury hotels, resorts, and spas, plans to add a product — clubs — under a new brand, Six Senses Place. Once several are open, the operator would like to create a membership service giving travelers access to the clubs worldwide.

The luxury brand, owned by IHG Hotel & Resorts, aims to open its first club next year in London — likely at The Whiteley Hotel.

Six Senses CEO Neil Jacobs described the club as “kinda cool.” It will be somewhat of a cross between a Rotary Club and Soho House.

Minus the traditional trappings of a colonial club — and without stuffy dark wood paneling or velvet furniture — Six Senses Place will offer restaurants, bars, and gyms and have a wellness theme.

Jacobs said his eventual aim is to offer a Six Senses Place global membership that would give a buyer access to its clubs worldwide. The brand also plans to offer two years of club membership free to any buyer of a property in the Six Senses Residences, its branded residential homes.

The clubs’ goal is to enable guests to continue enjoying the Six Senses ecosystem long after they’ve left its traditional properties.

“In some ways, the wellness piece is even more relevant in a city,” Jacobs said.

Yet the clubs are unlikely to operate as standalone entities but will usually come attached to a Six Senses hotel .

“Guests may choose to stay in a Six Senses hotel because there is a Six Senses Place,” Jacobs claimed.

It’s not the only brand looking to follow guests home. In the U.S., Canyon Ranch plans to open urban, mid-size, partial-service wellness clubs in Houston (in early 2024) and Fort Worth, Texas (by the end of 2023).

The best-known membership club is Soho House & Co. It has 226,830 members and a long waiting list as of year-end 2022, showing the popularity of clubs.

Jacobs also shared his interest in developing a Six Senses senior living at some point as a way of underscoring the brand’s ability to maintain its distinctive identity while being affiliated with a global hospitality chain. IHG acquired Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas for $300 million from US-based private equity fund manager Pegasus Capital Advisors in 2019.

Although many people worried IHG might ruin Six Senses’ momentum because it is a giant corporation without much experience in luxury resorts, the CEO said the conversations had been aligned from the word “go.”

“IHG has been very respectful of how we function and seems to really care about what we were doing,” Jacobs said, adding, “There was also somewhat of a halo effect of owning us that impacted the rest of the IHG brand and their aspirations in the world of luxury.”

IHG has let Six Senses retain its core entity and maintain some consistency in its messaging and branding