Lessons from Luxury Hospitality Leaders
A new year has a way of sharpening old questions. As luxury hospitality looks ahead to 2026, one stands out above the rest: what really gives a hospitality brand power in an increasingly crowded, complex market?
That question sat at the heart of The Power of Brand, our latest Business Breakfast, hosted at The Savoy in November 2025. Bringing together industry leaders for a panel discussion and fireside chat, the morning set out to explore how brand drives commercial performance in luxury hospitality. In fact, the morning delivered far more depth and far more candour, than the agenda first suggested.
Across the panel discussion and the fireside chat that followed, one theme surfaced consistently: in a marketplace where 70% of travellers believe modern luxury hotels have lost their unique identity, the brands with the confidence to be unmistakably themselves will be the ones that endure. In a category defined by experience, personality and trust, it is this clarity of identity that drives both loyalty and long-term revenue.
People First, Brand Second - or Are They the Same Thing?
Red Carnation Hotels’ Suzie Thompson opened the discussion by grounding brand not in visuals or slogans, but in the day-to-day reality of human interaction.
“We didn’t lose anyone in Covid,” she shared. “Everybody was taken care of. And I think people are very loyal to the brand because of that.”
For Suzie, the heart of the brand lives in the individuals who greet guests, remember preferences and create moments worth returning for - the Johns, Keiths and Susies who appear in TripAdvisor reviews as often as the hotels themselves. It is a powerful reminder that in hospitality, brand affinity is built internally before it is ever recognised externally.
By caring for their teams, Red Carnation strengthens loyalty, consistency and service - each of which compounds into commercial performance. As Suzie put it, “Our guests want to come back to the same people,” and that continuity becomes a strategic asset.
Turning Consistency into Commercials
Where Suzie focused on people, Premier Inn’s former Customer Director, Tamara Strauss, spoke to the power of clarity and consistency, proof that a strong brand can thrive on simplicity rather than embellishment.
“Premier Inn is all about a great night’s sleep,” she said. “When we dug into sleep scores, we realised the beds weren’t lasting as long as we needed - so we redesigned every single one.”
After installing 65,000 new beds, the brand doubled down on its essence with the ‘Rest Easy’ positioning. It’s an approach rooted in reassurance rather than aspiration, but commercially potent because it removes friction from decision-making and strengthens price integrity. A guest who knows exactly what to expect is far more likely to convert.
While Premier Inn sits outside the luxury space, the principle resonates strongly within it: clarity reduces noise, improves marketing efficiency and builds trust at scale.
Simplicity, executed well, becomes a competitive advantage.
“You know exactly where you are when you wake up in one of our hotels. Everything, from our partnerships to our cuisine, celebrates local culture.”
Jo Stevenson, Executive Head of Sales & Marketing - The Lanesborough
How Soft Brands Can Be Strong
Building on that perspective, Oetker Hotels’ Jo Stevenson offered a complementary but distinct view: individuality can be just as powerful as consistency, provided it is anchored by shared values.
“You know exactly where you are when you wake up in one of our hotels,” she said. “Everything, from our partnerships to our cuisine, celebrates local culture.”
Each Oetker Hotel operates with autonomy, drawing its identity from its setting, history and community. Yet across the portfolio, a common culture binds them: elegance, family spirit and kindness. These values guide service behaviours, shape decision-making and unify guest expectations.
The result is one of the strongest return-guest ratios in the sector. As Jo put it, “Our guests feel the same spirit wherever they stay, even though each hotel is distinct.”
Here, individuality isn’t fragmentation. It’s differentiation with purpose - and proof that soft brands can deliver hard commercial impact.
A Balanced Brand Engine
Taking the discussion into the digital arena, Dorchester Collection’s Digital Marketing Manager, Virginia Zanaboni, explored how emotional storytelling can strengthen performance marketing when applied with precision.
“Luxury guests don’t just want to book rooms,” she noted. “They want emotional connections. They want memorable moments.”
Dorchester’s digital strategy pairs brand-led prospecting with messaging such as “The hotel for people who make the world turn”, with tightly targeted retargeting that highlights dining, location and unique selling points. Brand builds desire; product drives action.
Virginia also emphasised the importance of brand governance in an age of automation. AI tools such as Performance Max offer reach and efficiency, but “you must still keep control of the brand. Otherwise it’s too easy for the wrong logo to appear with the wrong hotel - and that can undo a lot of equity.”
Her perspective reinforced a key commercial truth: the clearer the brand positioning, the more efficiently digital campaigns can run, reducing wasted spend and improving return on ad investment.
A Masterclass in Rediscovering Your Identity
The Savoy, one of the world’s most recognisable hotels, could easily have relied on heritage alone when emerging from the turbulence of Covid. Instead, as Managing Director Franck Arnold shared, “We had to really ask ourselves who we were, and what legacy we were going to leave.”
Through extensive research, 80 DAYS and The Savoy uncovered a positioning that felt both authentic and forward-looking: The Original.
Sam Riches, Director of Sales & Marketing, described the moment the idea crystallised.
“We realised The Savoy is the original - not just historically, but in mindset. We were the first luxury hotel in London. The first with hot and cold running water. The first with en-suite bathrooms. Innovation is part of our DNA.”
What followed was not a brand refresh, but a cultural reawakening:
- A new Originals campaign, reimagining legendary Savoy moments through a modern lens.
- The Savoy Originals podcast, hosted by Alex Zane, featuring contemporary innovators who embody the spirit of originality.
- Brand-led naming decisions, such as ‘Scoff’, their scone shop; a clever homage to Auguste Escoffier that blends heritage with modern wit.
- Cultural alignment across teams, ensuring that everyone, from new starters to long-tenured colleagues, understood the brand’s essence.
Sam put it simply: “There’s no magic wand. It’s all marginal gains, all guided by the same story.”
He concluded by eloquently outlining their team’s long-term ambition: “We are custodians of the Savoy. Our job is to leave it better than we found it.”
The Pattern Across Luxury: Distinction Drives Demand
Across all speakers, all sectors, all viewpoints, a single truth rose to the surface:
Brand is your commercial advantage.
Not because it looks good on a website, but because:
- It aligns teams
- It strengthens pricing power
- It fuels loyalty
- It guides investment
- It informs creativity
- It brings clarity to complexity
And in an era of new supply, rising acquisition costs, transformative technologies and ever more emotionally attuned travellers, the hotels that thrive will be the ones who know, and show, exactly who they are.
Franck summed it up poignantly: “The Savoy has been here for 136 years. We owe it to the future to make the next chapter just as strong.”
The same is true for every brand that hopes to endure.
Looking Ahead
The discussion ended with a look toward the future, and the threats and opportunities that await luxury hospitality in the next few years.
- For Oetker Hotels, the challenge is thoughtful growth, choosing only locations that strengthen the brand’s narrative.
- For Premier Inn, it’s perhaps resisting the temptation to over-automate at the cost of service.
- For Dorchester Collection, it’s harnessing AI without losing emotional precision.
- For Red Carnation, it’s sustaining relevance while remaining deeply personal and delightfully human.
- And for icons like The Savoy, it’s honouring heritage while continuously reinventing what originality means.
Across all, one sentiment remained constant: brand is becoming more important, not less. As technology accelerates and guest expectations evolve, brand becomes the anchor, the glue that connects past, present and future.
So, what is the ‘Power of Brand’ in 2026?
Luxury hospitality has never been more competitive, but it has also never been more full of possibility. The hotels that stand out will not necessarily be the most lavish or the most technologically advanced, but the most distinctive - those that tell a story only they can tell.
Brands that know themselves. Brands that dare to be different. Brands that are felt, not just seen.
What emerged was a reminder that the most successful hotels aren’t simply places to stay; they are places that stay with you. That’s the power of brand - the ability to transform a building into a feeling, and a stay into a story.