The creator presents a critical analysis of the modern luxury hospitality industry, arguing that it has shifted from providing true luxury (defined by service, protection, and exclusivity) to 'fake luxury' (focused on aesthetics and marketing). He supports his thesis by drawing parallels to the fashion industry, citing books on the topic, and explaining how the business incentive to scale has led to a commodified, transactional experience that prioritizes appearance over genuine hospitality.
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Luxury hospitality is more like a real estate extraction play than it is about hospitality. Dozens of brands with decreasing service quality, and increasing prices, as they attempt scale something that shouldn’t be scaled - luxury, access, exclusivity.
The financial incentives are too strong. But luxury is not meant to scale. Most of these brands are going to go in one of two paths: actual luxury, reduced locations, or commodified luxury aka upscale. Luxury prices but service that isn’t worth the cost.
#hospitality #bar #bars #hotels #brand
Transcript
Luxury hospitality isn't really luxury anymore. It's more like a real estate extraction racket. Let me tell you why. This happened in fashion first. In her book Deluxe, Dana Thomas warned us about this decades ago. She wrote that to make luxury accessible to all, corporations stripped away its integrity. They replaced craftsmanship with logos. In hospitality, that's meant replacing service and hospitality with aesthetic and marketing. The modern hotel and hospitality brand tells itself a lie that if we make it look expensive, it is expensive. So we get ornate details, fancy lighting, marble floors, all the accoutrement, but it feels more like a stage, not a world that you can enter into. You see, real luxury used to be defined by protection and access. Protection from noise, friction, effort. You felt like you didn't have to lift a finger and that it was a little bit exclusive. Now luxury is asking you to scan a QR code, wait in line, or download an app to join their points program. So why did this happen? The reason is not best, it's incentives. Luxury brands started to scale like tech companies. Companies built luxury hospitality brands to scale, dumping millions into celebrity endorsements and influencers. But luxury isn't meant to scale. In status and culture, David Marx says that when luxury becomes too accessible, it loses its power. Luxury hospitality used to gatekeep experiences, but now they're distributing memberships. You have luxury brands now operating more like factories. This is how you get $900 rooms that feel like they're worth $90. And many move to an asset light model, meaning they don't even own the buildings that they run. The future will be split into two. You'll have commoditized luxury, expensive and pretty, but very transactional. And then you'll have true luxury, which is defined by inefficiency. Most luxury brands aren't bad. They're just confusing bad,
