The Biggest Innovators in Travel and Hospitality: 2022 Year-End Edition

25.08.2023 - 14:28 / skift.com / Colin Nagy / Airlines

One of the best definitions of high-end hospitality I saw this year suggested: “Luxury is when the standard operating procedure isn’t showing.” This hit the nail on the head for the products and experiences that transcend good into great. The guest feels a sense of detail, thoughtful anticipation, and comfort but the gears and machinations to deliver it remains hidden.

Luxury is indeed at a crossroads: with the resurgence of travel, some of the tensions and pressures come front and center; to deliver this type of experience (and to justify the cost), staff that feel a higher calling are necessary. This, of course, is difficult in a job market that is still healing from the deep cuts and emotional scars of the pandemic. But I firmly believe that future of enlightened hospitality will be less by financial engineers and debt-laden entities but rather defined by the entrepreneurs, the thinkers, and those that see the task of providing comfort and obsessing over detail as a calling. 

Following are some of the interesting places, spaces, and hoteliers that have brought inspiration to my year, and to the wider industry. 

At its best, high-end hospitality forges a particular type of leader: one that has a global worldview, strong emotional intelligence as well as operational and design/aesthetic chops. I’m consistently impressed by the general managers across the brand at Four Seasons. The brand trains and grows a particularly special type of leader. By virtue of the fact that they work across the globe, there is a hard-earned worldliness that seems them able to navigate different cultural operating systems. And I find there to be a unique, yet intangible common thread that unites the types of men and women in the role. In a world where luxury has a tremendous amount of inconsistency of late, the Four Seasons leadership corps is reliably great. Standouts for me this year have been GMs (general managers) Sunil Narang (Mumbai), Philippe Roux-Dessarps (Athens) Thomas Carreras (New York), Lubosh Barta (Bangkok) as well as hotel manager Sandra Oliva (Florence).  

Ett Hem has always been a favorite of in-the-know travelers who want a more intimate, residential feel. The hotel recently expanded tastefully into two neighboring buildings. When I visited, I loved that there is no back-of-house: everything happens in the open and lends itself to a more intimate experience. Hotelier Jeanette Mix brings a thoughtful design sensibility, in partnership with Ilse Crawford, with attentive yet relaxed service. This is a near-perfect city hotel, and now it will be (hopefully) easier to get a room.  

Hotelier Nicole Boekhoorn and her wife Fleur Huijskens created Sterrekopje, an intimate working farm in the foothills of the