“Those experiences are fundamentally different,” he explained. “It’s like Volvo building a sports car, or Ferrari trying to build a car that’s safe and secure. That’s not us.”
While BodyHoliday has all the spa treatments and healthy dinging options, Barnard also said they have the temptations and indulgences that guests would expect on a fabulous, fun vacation.
“The BodyHoliday approach to life change is one that is about incremental and sustainable choices that we want people to make in their lives,” he said. “We’re not trying to turn your life upside down. A lot of BodyHoliday guests are already invested in wellness... They’re just looking for those values to be enhanced and be inspired to feel even better. And that’s what BodyHoliday does. It doesn’t try to limit you in a clinical setting. It tries to inspire you to live a better life... We’ve been around for 38 years working out how to maximize the wellness intent of our guests with the ability to get under their skins and inside of their hearts. That’s how you affect change.”
At the end of the day, however, Barnard also admits Sunswept Resorts and BodyHoliday are unknown quantities in the global hotel investment world.
“But I like to think that we punch above our weight... So, as I’ve been bringing on the team, I’ve had access to some interesting people and real heavy hitters. We’re talking honestly from the heart about what we do, why we exist, what our principles are, what our ethics are, and then showing them the results of that. We’re certainly raising some eyebrows and getting some traction.”
Hoteliers budget for rising costs in labor, renovations and food and beverage
Owners, operators make 2026 plans based 'more on realism and not on hope'
As U.S. hoteliers prepare their 2026 budgets, they've said the cost of labor is among their highest expenses increases. (Getty Images) https://www.costar.com/article/1869797857/hoteliers-budget-for-rising-costs-in-labor-renovations-and-food-and-beverage
As hoteliers prepare their budgets for 2026, the road ahead is filled with cost increases.
While increasing revenue would be a welcome way to address rising expenses, that’s not necessarily the case for many hotel owners and operators. Instead, they are trying to reduce expenses where they can and otherwise adapt to a more expensive operating environment.
Among the multiple areas where hoteliers expect expenses to increase, the cost of labor, renovations and food and beverage are among the highest.
Higher labor costs
Hospitality is a service industry, and as such, the largest ongoing cost will always be labor.
The big and continuous or multiple wage increases seen in recent years have passed, said
Chad Sorensen, managing director and CEO of hotel asset management firm
CHMWarnick.
“But the damage has already been done, right?” he added.
Now it’s a matter of competing within the marketplace, he said. Growth in wages isn’t coming from having to give bumps in pay for certain positions. Instead, it’s keeping up with the cost of living and inflation.
Looking at it from a macro level, the second half of 2025 will show year-over-years savings related to labor increase compared to the first half, he said.
“As we think about 2026, you really do need to look at it on a granular basis, quarter by quarter, especially what you’re compared to year over year because the metrics are different depending on which quarter you’re looking at,” he said.
Along with state and local minimum wage increases each year, hotel companies need to retain their current employees, said
Greg Presnol, vice president of operations at third-party manager
Palette Hotels.
“It’s definitely more expensive for us to be able to back fill an employee or lose someone than it would be to keep great people, so our budget assumes higher hourly rates pretty much on the average,” he said. “More structured with incentive pay, stronger benefit contributions, and we treat labor at Palette as an investment in service consistency, not just a line item where we try to squeeze it out.”
Wage increases have been stabilizing, but hotel companies are inviting new people into the industry, said
Nick Johnson, senior vice president of full-service and lifestyle hotels at hotel investment and management company
First Hospitality.
“We’re still kind of in that rebuild or building back our labor base in hospitality, so that’s certainly a component,” he said, adding there are many factors at play. “It’s certainly where our focus really remains, on how to manage that.”
To adapt to all expected cost increases, First Hospitality worked up a 2026 readiness plan, he said. The company established a new commercial strategy that focuses on all areas of revenue, such as room upgrades and connecting room premiums and outside sources of revenue. On the expense side, they engaged in early conversations with vendors to try to maintain cost levels heading into next year.
“We’ve had some great relationships with partners on our ability to stop, to mute the expense side of the [profit and loss] growth,” he said.
As part of this readiness plan, there’s a financial vertical that focuses on activities on the forecasting side that it pulls into its daily operations, he said. It occurs in daily, weekly and monthly cadences, allowing general managers, regional operations managers and the finance team to get close to each hotel and each hotel’s strategy to ensure they don’t have any surprise expense increases.
“We’ve gotten to a five-day financial close at the end of each month that’s really done through being proactive in the current month with how much we are building for the financial close,” he said.
That has allowed them to react more quickly to the P&L after it’s been produced, he said.
Renovation projects
The hotel brands have been pushing for renovations to take place and stay on top of brand standards, Sorensen said. Generally, ownership groups are adhering to that and reinvesting in their properties.
“There is just, again, more scrutiny around the actual physical product and making sure that if they’re putting dollars in certain areas, that they’re truly needed,” he said.
Owners and asset managers are looking through the lens of a hotel’s current condition and whether it would be acceptable in five or six years, he said. If the answer is yes, then it becomes a qualified discussion with the brand that brings all parties together to make logical decisions.
“It's always complicated, but it's probably more complicated now than ever because you do throw in the uncertainty with the tariffs, and that uncertainty is continuing to keep costs elevated and rising,” he said.
On the construction side, there’s been no relief on that front, and most aren’t holding out hope that costs will get better, he said. Construction costs have stabilized, but they’re at a level significantly higher than they were a few years ago. Availability is better now, but construction labor wages are higher.
“You do get a little more negotiating power from an owner’s perspective, but it’s not significant,” he said. “The wage rates are still high, and you’re still paying to have quality partners on renovation jobs.”
There will be higher repair and replacement costs through the furniture, fixtures and equipment piece of the budget, Presnol said. Basic maintenance is more expensive than it was 12 months ago. There’s a higher cost for materials, contracted labor and most anything else in that space.
“Owners are definitely feeling that,” he said. “We can’t just defer maintenance forever without it showing up in our guest scores or rate resistance for a hotel.”
For 2026, Palette proactively increased its property-level repairs and maintenance and capital expenditures assumptions instead of pretending last year’s numbers will somehow hold up, he said.
“We’re definitely budgeting more on realism and not on hope,” he said.
Food and beverage costs
Increases for food and beverage items doesn’t have a clear culprit to point to, Sorensen said.
“I don’t feel there’s the egg situation going on as much in this environment,” he said.
There’s a general instability in a lot of different products, and that goes along with the overall instability, particularly as it relates to tariffs, he said. Managing that requires a lot more time, energy and analysis while also being more flexible with menus at outlets as well as in banquets and catering.
In the food and beverage space, the cost of ingredients, disposables and third-party service contracts all came in higher this year, Presnol said.
“We do not see that rolling back, obviously, with tariffs and other things going on out there, but we’ve responded to that by tightening and engineering and simplifying and pushing contribution margin instead of just top line F&B revenue,” he said.
At some select-service hotels, the company has shaken things up a bit to protect flow through without hurting any of the guest experiences. They’ve looked at how they can change the footprint but still deliver on the service component, which remains an important factor today.
Emotions and memories guide luxury hotel design
Operating high-end properties requires balance of controlling costs, personalized touches
From left: Felicity Black-Roberts, of Hyatt; Tarek Hegazy, of Living Design; Barbara Wiethoff, of JOI-Design; Henning Matthiesen, of Matthiesen Hotel Project Management & Consulting; and Tina Norden, of Conran & Partners, participate on a panel at the Inspire: Luxury Hospitality Conference in Prague, Czech Republic. (Terence Baker)
https://www.costar.com/article/2099643286/emotions-and-memories-guide-luxury-hotel-design?
PRAGUE, Czech Republic — Developing and maintaining luxury hotels takes a lot of planning and data-driven decisions, but equal amounts of emotion and soul are required, too.
Across Europe, grand luxury hotels are pieces of history that require careful consideration when renovating or updating. Henning Matthiesen, founder and CEO of Matthiesen Hotel Project Management & Consulting, said those considerations begin with a deep dive into a building’s history, soul and essence.
Having a full understanding of the stories of a luxury hotel’s bricks and guests will allow the correct design and offerings to be added to the building, he said. From there, there's room to experiment with the property's operating model.
“Identifying the history can lead to materials and design that will be timeless. We want the situation where guests ask, 'Where did you buy this bed, this lamp?' And those questions from people who might own five homes,” he said during a panel at the Inspire: Luxury Hotel Conference hosted by the International Luxury Hotel Association.
Hotel renovations by nature are often costly, and in the luxury segment, that elevated cost comes with risk. Felicity Black-Roberts, senior vice president of development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Hyatt Hotels Corp., said it is evident that the choice of materials used in luxury hotels should be ones that “will stay in this room for a long time and create return on investment for owners.”
Finding the balance of long-term sustainable design in a luxury hotel renovation is crucial, she added. Things such as rugs and carpets that need to be changed can be swapped out later on to give the hotel a fresh look without compromising the overall soul and luxuriousness of a property.
Tarek Hegazy, principal and creative director of Living Design, said he always has had difficulty in truly understanding what “resilience” means in hotel design. He asked if resilience is one of the pillars of sustainability.
“It’s a bit of a buzzword,” he said.
James Dilley, architect and director of Jestico + Whiles, said he doesn't like hotel design that's described as “timeless.” The panel agreed that luxury hotels evolve, even the most celebrated and traditional properties.
Tina Norden, principal of design company Conran & Partners, said thoughtful renovation and design can result in immediate value to hotel owners. She gave an example of a hotel she worked on in London, the Great Eastern Hotel — first opened in 1894 — which is now known as the
Andaz London Liverpool Street and is affiliated with Hyatt. Its renovation 10 years ago used materials that could last, and its classic bathrooms were kept intact. The hotel was acquired by Hyatt and partner JER in 2006 from the holding company of Conran’s founder, Terence Conran.
All design decisions need to be supported by a hotel's owners, said Barbara Wiethoff, partner at JOI-Design. And quality is not cheap.
“And designers need to be part of the conversation from the very start,” Wiethoff said.
Dilley said all designers have seen examples of where friction between passion and costs ends up with a finished product that is “vanilla and timid.”
Details and diligence
But durability in hotel design is not the same as resilience, panelists said. A nice bed and a good shower are givens in most hotels, and certainly in luxury ones, so the issue becomes what is layered on top of that, Black-Roberts said.
“That starts with great service. People play a huge part in bringing a hotel to life,” she said.
Luxury hotel guests often perceive service as the next major differentiator.
“Designers create the stage, and the staff perform on it every day. … There is a level of activation that needs to carry on to have hotels remain in guests’ memories,” Black-Roberts said.
Matthiesen agreed.
“Create passion and drive every day and aim for 150% performance,” Matthiesen said. “Passion is contagious, and luxury hotels have to be driven from the heart."
There are luxury hotels across Europe that are more than 150 years old, Matthiesen said. Yet, these properties are still market leaders. Why? The answer often lies in the incremental details, he added.
“Is this still the right wine glass for our guests?” Matthiesen said.
Hotel designers have the responsibility of relating the stories of what they have used in a hotel’s design, why they have chosen certain things and the thinking behind how a hotel was renovated, Norden said.
“It’s the memories you bring home” that make a luxury hotel feel true to form, Hegazy added.
Plus, the priorities and desires of luxury hotel guests are changing with each generation, Hegazy said, citing the need for a luxury property to emphasize sustainability and a connection to its local community.
“The next generation’s tick boxes are totally different to ours,” he said.
Matthiesen added ultimately luxury-hotel guests are looking for uniqueness.
“It is about emotions per square meter,” he said.
Luxury hotel brands
When hotel brand companies enter the luxury space, they bring rules on development protocols and service and brand standards, Hegazy said.
“The data is checked, and then the operators give us a specific brand to work with. Every category comes with different tools,” he said.
Black-Roberts added that decisions on where Hyatt goes and with what come from data.
“Layer on top of that the question, will it work? A lot comes through the deal leader, who knows that market intimately. There is a huge amount of investment in luxury from both owners and brands. We do categorize an opportunity. What effect will it have on our network performance. There are only two cities in the United Kingdom we’d put in a
Park Hyatt,” she said.
This is where it pays to be cautious, even in the highest hotel segments, Matthiesen said.
“Brief is important, but then immediately boundaries are set, and in luxury that might not be the way forwards. And then there are cost limitations even in a luxury hotel, after which you have to live with the finished hotel for the next 25 to 40 years,” he added.
Hotel brand development — even in the luxury space — has evolved into a science.
“If there is a brand, there must be a base level of specification,” Black-Roberts said, adding that specification books can run to several hundred pages in length. “... We do not want the same hotel everywhere, but we want a thread. Specifications are based on guest data.”
A year ago, Hyatt
acquired Standard International and its portfolio of lifestyle hotel brands. Black-Roberts said at the time it was “not lost on us … that Hyatt could subdue that brand.”
Instead, Hyatt took a proactive step to keep the authenticity of Standard and its hotel brands, she said.
“We created a subgroup, lifestyle, and [Standard founder] Amar [Lalvani] stayed in New York with his team. We have grown a protective cloak around lifestyle to include [other Hyatt brands] Andaz and Thompson. We have separate teams to develop and manage these hotels. We paid a lot of money for it,” she said.
IHG opens world’s tallest hotel
The 1,004-room Ciel Dubai Marina, Vignette Collection by IHG Hotels & Resorts, reaches up 1,237 feet and has one of the world’s highest infinity pools. (IHG Hotels & Resorts)
https://www.costar.com/article/1025609005/ihg-opens-worlds-tallest-hotel?
No stranger to superlatives, Dubai has said — yet again — it is home to the world’s tallest hotel.
Officially opened on Nov. 17, the 1,004-room Ciel Dubai Marina, Vignette Collection by IHG Hotels & Resorts rises 1,237 feet, or 377 meters, making it the tallest hotel in the world. The hotel spans 82 floors, and its spa is set to open in winter 2026.
It takes over the mantle from the 505-room
Gevora Hotel, also in Dubai, which rises to 1,169 feet, or 356 meters. Parts of the 251-room, 16-story
Rosewood Guangzhou in China are higher than both the Dubai hotels in the CTF Finance Centre tower that rises 1,740 feet, or 530 meters. In order for a hotel to unofficially qualify for the title of world's tallest, however, it has to comprise 80% of the building in which it is in.
The owner of the Ciel Dubai Marina, according to CoStar, is Dubai-based Immo Prestige Holding, and
First Group Hospitality is operating the hotel.
DUHC&S | Strategic Hospitality Consulting & Advisory
Key partnerships and disruptive innovation
Proven results :
✅ 54% GOP |
✅ +200% asset valuation growth
✅ Successful projects across 6 Latin American countries
🔹 Let's connect :
Disclaimer
DUHC&S shares this information for educational and informational purposes only. The news articles reproduced here are sourced from public and recognized media outlets. We are not the original authors of this content but rather distributors of it. All credits go to the original sources cited in each article. If you are the legitimate owner of any material and wish to have it modified or removed, please contact us immediately at diurugeles@gmail.com, and we will address your request promptly.
Comments
Post a Comment