Leslie Barrie travel tips

The founders of Urban Cowboy opened their first boutique hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2014 without a real plan. Little did they know they were starting a minor hotel empire.

When brothers Tony and Nate DeLois opened The Francis, a boutique hotel in Portland, Maine, back in 2017, they realized something was missing in the market. “There has been a lot of hotel development in the past 10 years in Portland, and every new hotel that has been built on the peninsula has been branded,” said Nate, the co-principal and chief financial officer of Uncommon Hospitality.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, June 21. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

The new Grand Hotel Son Net, which opened last month, is set at the foothills of the Tramuntana Mountains on the island of Mallorca — and does not want to be referred to as a boutique hotel. Nor does it consider itself a resort.

One of the most influential players among boutique hotels, Eagle Point Hotel Partners, didn’t set out in 2010 to sidestep the major global hotel brands. 

The Ozarks may have a branding problem. Built up in the ’80s and ’90s with big hotel chains and arguably kitschy attractions, Branson has garnered a reputation among some as “the Las Vegas of the Midwest” — just more family-friendly. But the team behind The Ozarker Lodge in Branson, Missouri, which opened June 30, has some fresh ideas.

The Orli Hotel in La Jolla, California, is betting that travelers with a next-gen mindset are open to a coastal getaway that doesn’t have an overtly beachy feel. A pair of millennial and Gen-Z founders have created a high-design boutique hotel in their seaside hometown, attempting to depart from cliché.

Nik Feldman long believed that Lexington, Kentucky, was ready for a high-end boutique hotel.