This Airline Just Made It a Lot Easier to Get to Spain for the Completion of Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia
This Airline Just Made It a Lot Easier to Get to Spain for the Completion of Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia
Getty Images for Unsplash+
https://www.fodors.com/world/europe/spain/experiences/news/jetblue-launches-boston-barcelona-route-just-in-time-for-sagrada-familias-long-awaited-completion
After 144 years of construction, Barcelona's iconic La Sagrada Familia is finally being completed.
This year, in Barcelona, marks the centenary of Antoni Gaudí’s passing—the architect whose work defines the city. Even more remarkable is that Gaudí’s iconic La Sagrada Família is finally nearing completion after 144 years of construction, a once-in-a-generation moment for visitors. And, as someone who’s been to Barcelona more than once already, I was ready to visit once again.
Like magic, JetBlue’s Boston-Barcelona route is unveiled right on time. If you’ve never attended an inaugural flight celebration, it’s quite the event. The kick-off party offered a taste of Spain with festive décor, light bites, and remarks from the airline’s president right at my departure gate.
This was my first time flying JetBlue Mint, and it did not disappoint. The experience offers the largest lie-flat seats among major U.S. airlines, Tuft & Needle bedding, and restaurant-style dining from acclaimed New York eateries. Seatback menu ordering, wireless charging, curated wellness kits, and free Fly-Fi ensure you arrive in Barcelona genuinely refreshed.
My travels continued with a dual stay at two standout properties from NH Collection Hotels. NH Collection Barcelona Constanza, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rafael Moneo, offered sleek white marble interiors in the city’s modern financial district. And NH Collection Barcelona Gran Hotel Calderón, built on the former site of the Teatro Calderón by architect Josep Rodriguez Lloveras, was conveniently located in the Quadrant d’Or.
There’s always space to simply enjoy in Barcelona—whether in a paella cooking class, a leisurely street art wander through the Gothic Quarter, or cocktails at Paradiso, one of the World’s 50 Best Bars. And, with JetBlue’s new route and NH Collection Hotel’s locations, there’s never been a more compelling time to go.
Driftwood Capital targets key Caribbean, Latin American markets for strategic luxury growth
Company prioritizes adaptive reuse, repositioning projects
Driftwood Capital renovated the 245-key Hotel Rumbao, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, ahead of the opening of its new 10,500-square-foot casino called the Gran Casino Viejo San Juan. (Driftwood)
https://www.costar.com/article/2031385353/driftwood-capital-targets-key-caribbean-latin-american-markets-for-strategic-luxury-growth
By Bryan Wroten
CORAL GABLES, Florida — A year since launching its Lifestyle & Luxury platform, Driftwood Capital is adding, expanding, and breaking ground on new additions to its total portfolio.
Luxury hotels and hotels in different regions are also part of the plan, said Alinio Azevedo, managing director of luxury and lifestyle, in an interview at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit Caribbean and Latin America conference.
In recent months, the hospitality-focused real estate investment firm topped off its 500-room Westin Cocoa Beach project and opened a casino at its Hotel Rumbao Tribute Portfolio in Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. It also broke ground on a new development in Miami called the Riverside Wharf mixed-use project. In April, Gregory Maliassas joined the company from Playa Hotels & Resorts as CEO of its management arm, Driftwood Hospitality Management.
Azevedo and his team have been deliberate about growth — in class and in geography — in the year since Driftwood started the Lifestyle & Luxury platform. They've yet to add a true luxury hotel to the portfolio, but he said the team sees a massive opportunity for them, since the luxury hotel segment has been over-performing, as the cohort of wealthy people who choose luxury hotel stays has grown as well.
“The idea is to create a group that allows us to invest in the upper end of the market and build and/or acquire, reposition hotels that could be positioned as lifestyle,” he said.
Alinio Azevedo (Driftwood Capital)
As part of this, Driftwood is looking at international expansion, scouting out markets outside the U.S. that fit best with the company’s vision, he said. There are a select few in the CALA region, specifically Mexico, Costa Rica — where it already has one hotel — and the Dominican Republic. It’s also looking at expanding in Puerto Rico, and Spain and Portugal are possibilities down the road.
“We're doing this slowly, and we're doing this methodically and trying to find really the right deal,” he said.
Every country is different, and while at the macro level conditions may be similar, the cost of capital will vary depending on the market, he said. In some countries, borrowers can get local debt financing because the industry is more mature and the financial markets trust hospitality companies. In other countries, there’s less trust.
“Therefore, that has an impact on the value, so there’s no one-size-fits-all,” he said.
Generally speaking, hotel investment is capital-intensive, and capital is expensive across the world, he said. Interest rates have gone up, and geopolitical concerns and inflation expectations play into this as well.
Driftwood spends a lot of time defining target markets because the macro market environment has a significant influence on the outcome of its investments, Azevedo said. Finding the right market and the right deal in that market is the first threshold to cross to do a deal. Beyond that, it’s about finding the right balance between development deals and acquisitions, and repositioning projects.
Historically, Driftwood has grown through a lot of adaptive reuse or enhanced value-add renovations, he said. It buys underperforming hotels, invests capital into them, changes the brand and management, and then scales and stabilizes the property.
CoStar data shows Driftwood Capital owns 36 hotels operating or under development. The majority are branded properties, mostly a mix of Marriott International and Hilton flags. Since 2015, the company and its affiliates have transacted on over $5 billion in hospitality properties.
When filtering everything that comes through that, the first layer is markets and locations within the market, he said. After that, it’s looking at whether it’s an adaptive reuse project or a development project that won’t be too long of a development cycle.
As for how many opportunities make it from the top of the funnel to acquisition, he said, “probably less than 5%. We see a lot of things on a daily basis.”
There hasn’t been a lot of true distress in the market as seen after the Great Financial Crisis, Azevedo said. There are opportunities to acquire properties below replacement costs, but they aren’t necessarily in large degrees of distress. There are a lot of expectations over when interest rates will come down again, and the timing of that will be important to see whether distressed transactions actually unlock.
There's still a gap between sellers’ expectations and buyers’ willingness to buy, he said.
“We've seen sellers take assets to market, the market comes back with a much lower valuation than they were willing to take, and then they just keep the asset,” he said. “Well, for how much longer can they keep the asset?”
There’s a carrying cost of a hotel from capital expenditures, he said. Some owners will defer the renovations because they’re not long-term holders.
“We don't have a crystal ball, but what we are doing is making sure that we're prepared internally with capabilities, with the right strategy to be able to execute on those deals once they start to happen,” he said.
Technification is accelerating commoditization
Stand out through humanification
Doug Kennedy (Kennedy Training Network)
https://www.costar.com/article/2133885481/technification-is-accelerating-commoditization?
By Doug Kennedy
Technification, defined as the application of technology-based systems to a specific industry, was first used in the 1930s according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but it feels more relevant than ever in today’s business world.
This is especially true in the lodging industry. Agentic artificial intelligence, large-language models, chatbots, and humanoid robots are grabbing headlines and commanding more of leadership’s attention.
No doubt, it’s super important to stay abreast of all the changes transforming the lodging industry. When deployed correctly, technology can and will positively impact guest experiences and simultaneously increase profits.
However, many solutions being touted in the name of increased operational efficiency may lead to commoditization, whereby price becomes the only remaining differentiator.
Arguments for the technification of processes are typically based on two premises. First, it is difficult to find qualified labor these days because employees are neither loyal or hard working anymore, especially the Gen Z workforce, and therefore it is better to replace humans whenever possible. Secondly, today’s guests prefer self-service models over human-centric service, especially younger — i.e., Millennial and Gen Z — guests who, as we are constantly reminded, “grew up with smartphones.”
Tech companies, in particular, push the idea that you can classify an entire cohort of humans simply by their birth year. This concept was made famous by Neil Howe and William Strauss in their 1991 book "Generations."
In writing this month’s column, I am tempted to refute these premises, as I have done previously, by sharing stories about the amazing, hard-working, eager-to-learn Gen Z employees I encounter every week as I conduct on-site hospitality staff training workshops. I could once more share data from legit research firms like McKinsey & Co. showing that customers of all ages prefer live conversations, even the Gen Z cohort.
But instead, I will simply ask readers to pause and consider the result when hotels remove even the remaining human connections from the guest service cycle.
When the day comes that saying “representative” no longer gets you to a live agent, when all guests are forced to use smartphone check-in, when room service can only be ordered on an app, when a human concierge is fully replaced by a personified app, when all RFPs for hotel groups and events are responded to by AI-powered sales CRMs, what is left for one hotel to differentiate itself?
Place? How many hotels truly have an exclusive advantage of location, versus those that have a direct competitor next door or across the street?
Product? Although the “physical product” (rooms, lobby, meeting space, F&B) is certainly differentiated by hotel classification, those within the same market segment are typically homogenous. In most cases, if you blindfold an experienced traveler walked them into different hotels, they would see very little difference between brands.
Price? With hotel pricing being increasingly powered by automated revenue management systems working off the same data points, chances are the price is going to be commensurate.
Points? With all major brands offering loyalty programs, and with OTAs offering their One Key and Genius direct rewards, points no longer ensure loyalty. And with the proliferation of sub-brands within each mega brand, chances are that guests who are brand-loyal can find another like-branded hotel nearby, franchised by different owners, and therefore your direct competitor.
Take away the people parts, and what is left? A building with rooms that look the same, that are priced the same, and that offer the same technified self-service model.
The end result? Commoditization of an entire industry. When you ask AI (Gemini) to define the word, here’s what comes back:
"Commoditization is the process by which goods or services become standardized, indistinguishable from competitors' offerings, and interchangeable over time. In a commoditized market, products lose their unique brand identity or special features, forcing suppliers to compete primarily on price rather than differentiation. (Source: Wikipedia.)"
So what is the best way to differentiate your hotel from another in the same location and within the same classification? People! Your people are your hotel’s superpower.
Genuine smiles, warm welcomes, random conversations in passing, true personal recognition, that is what is going to bring guests back. In hotel sales, it is the relationships that build trust between the planner and the salesperson. The bartender who remembers a drink preference. The front desk clerk who remembers to ask about how a repeat guest’s dog or child is doing or who comments on their hometown.
Those who deploy chatbots talk about successful “containment” of guest requests and questions, but the real question is whether they were simply deflected or satisfactorily resolved.
The buzzword used when tech companies tout their solutions is to reduce “friction points.” Friction? A better phrase would be to call these “connection opportunities,” and rather than eliminating them, hotels should be obsessed with re-humanizing them. What is the cost of a conversation versus the benefit of having one?
Here are some ways to stand out through humanification, thus integrating the best of new technologies with the people parts:
- It is wonderful to have AI voice agents and chatbots answering the most basic questions and completing repetitive tasks, but make it easy to connect to a well-trained human for special needs or requests.
- Embrace every workable tech solution out there to free up time for your front desk staff so they can succeed in their most important role of all as greeters and first-impression makers.
- Similarly, automate away repetitive tasks in the food and beverage areas so servers, bartenders, and hosts can engage guests in genuine conversations.
- Train all staff to proactively greet guests they pass in hallways, corridors, and lobbies. To strike up guest-focused conversations in elevators, parking lots, and at the front door as guests await ride shares.
- Especially at resorts and full-service hotels, call guests who book online to obtain pre-arrival details, discover clues about how to personalize their visits, and thus encourage emotional connections with your brand.
- Likewise, when guests book through OTA’s that prohibit direct guest contact, have staff message guests through the app, introducing themselves by name, seeking out arrival details, thereby fostering brand loyalty that helps channel convert future stays.
- In the sales office, where auto-response features of CRMs provide an initial, prompt reply, salespeople reach out personally to create relationships.
Doug Kennedy is president of the Kennedy Training Network, Inc. Contact him at doug@kennedytrainingnetwork.com.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of CoStar News or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concerns.
How Argentina’s OVO Patagonia pushes luxury travel to the edge
https://hotelsmag.com/news/how-argentinas-ovo-patagonia-pushes-luxury-travel-to-the-edge/
Story contributed by Jose Sylvester.
As outdoor travelers seek out more unique destinations and once-in-a-lifetime experiences, properties offering upscale or disruptive accommodations in remote locations renowned for their scenery and natural beauty are standing out.
One is OVO Patagonia, set within Estancia Bonanza, a vast 20,000-acre private reserve outside the El Chaltén municipality in Argentina’s southern Patagonia. The property consists of only four transparent capsules suspended 270 meters above the valley floor, each positioned with unobstructed views of Mount Fitz Roy and the surrounding Andean massif.
Aiming for adventure, it challenges guests to leave preconceived luxury expectations aside from the beginning. Guests are transferred from El Chaltén to the Estancia, cross into the reserve, hike through native forest, stop at a mountain refuge and complete the final ascent clipped into a guided via ferrata before reaching the capsules. By the time they enter the room, the accommodation has already become part of the expedition.
OVO Patagonia consists of four transparent capsules suspended 270 meters above the valley floor.
BEYOND AESTHETIC
Much of experiential lodging today relies on dramatic architecture, photogenic settings and carefully curated interiors. OVO Patagonia goes further by making physical access, isolation, and exposure to the landscape central to the guest proposition.
Each capsule is vertically arranged across three compact levels: a sleeping area above, a lounge and dry bathroom in the center, and a suspended netted platform below. Solar power, satellite connectivity, and guided meal service add a layer of comfort, but the dominant amenity remains the same in every direction: Patagonia itself.
The Fitz Roy view is not incidental; it is the property’s visual anchor. Few accommodations can claim such an optical relationship with one of South America’s most recognizable mountain landmarks. OVO’s minuscule room count intentionally preserves that exclusivity. The surrounding Estancia Bonanza further deepens the stay through horseback excursions, trekking routes, Patagonian gastronomy, and private access to a landscape that most visitors experience only from public trails.
Capsules have a capacity for two people, with a double bed on the upper floor, a living area in the middle and a net on the lower level.
BEAUTY OF COMPLEXITY
The project is as notable for its complexity as for its design. Constructing habitable modules on a remote vertical rock face in southern Patagonia required specialized engineering, custom transport logistics, and weather-resistant execution in one of Argentina’s harshest operating environments. This is not a concept that can be copied quickly or inexpensively, and that difficulty becomes part of the commercial equation.
Because the product is both operationally demanding and fundamentally scarce, OVO Patagonia is able to position itself well above traditional regional lodging benchmarks. The property does not compete with nearby hotels in El Chaltén on room size or conventional service offerings; it competes on singularity, which supports luxury-level pricing (rates can exceed $2,000 per night).
Projects that combine hard-to-build infrastructure with location-specific immersion are finding a profitable niche amongst affluent travelers looking for the most exclusive and high-end places. In that sense, OVO Patagonia is less a novelty than a sign of where a portion of experiential luxury lodging is heading; fewer rooms, friction getting there, and considerably more value attached to the story.
DUHC&S | Strategic Hospitality Consulting & Advisory
We transform hospitality and tourism businesses through strategic solutions, operational efficiency, and comprehensive renovation. With over 40 years of experience working with brands like Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton, and Sonesta, we enhance asset value and profitability through:
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✅ Successful projects across 6 Latin American countries
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