What resort developments reveal about evolving journey preferences: Travel Weekly Asia

As the Hotel Investment Conference Asia Pacific (HICAP) celebrates 35 years, business veterans carry their decades-long perception to the resort funding panorama of in the present day and share their predictions on what’s going to form journey developments of tomorrow.

‘Experience’ comes full circle

“Experiential” journey has been the buzzword meaning nothing and all the pieces on the identical time. When taken again to its very origins, there’s a a lot better appreciation of what’s going to proceed to outline journey preferences shifting ahead – reminiscences.

“Experiential travel is not new. For some time, brand proliferation and standardisation caused the industry to move towards selling rooms rather than memories. This ‘new’ trend is really just a return to fundamental hospitality,” mentioned Anil Thadani, chairman at Symphony Asia Holdings, who co-founded Aman Resorts in 1987.

Perhaps what has modified is that have has develop into the expectation. Beyond the “Aman junkies” or luxurious vacationers, even enterprise travellers are actually anticipating experiential stays, he surmised.

Ticking boutique containers

Hotels that need all of it might quickly fall out of favour, whereas boutique accommodations will thrive, consultants predict.

The lesson for the broader journey business? Today’s shoppers are making journey selections based mostly on what speaks most strongly to distinct identities and “personas” at anybody level – not middle-of-the-road, generic manufacturers that do all of it.

“We all have different ‘personas’ when we travel,” mentioned Miguel Ko, chairman of CapitaLand Investment and former president of Starwood Asia Pacific Hotels and Resorts.

The identical traveller can have totally different personas and priorities when taking totally different journeys – whether or not with mates, household, or for enterprise – and search out merchandise with a selected providing every time.

“In this day and age, hotels can succeed by catering to one persona (at a time) as a small boutique hotel with 200 keys. There is no one size fits all anymore,” Ko mentioned.

Sell a dream

The high hospitality development to look at is branded residences, consultants on the HICAP convention agree. While it could not have direct implications for journey business middlemen, the explosion of dream vacation houses displays how aspirations are shaping general journey demand in large methods.

“The growth of lifestyle brands that combine hospitality with a sense of belonging (is remarkable), take the Soho House (for example). Similarly, Aman is not selling rooms but a lifestyle, a state of mind, a dream. What we did worked. And today, there’s a huge market for this… branded residences are spreading like wildfire,” mentioned Thadani.

Indeed, Savills’ Branded Residences: Asia Pacific 2025 report projected a 180% progress within the variety of branded residences in Asia-Pacific by 2031, with Southeast Asia being one of many strongest progress engines.

Disrupting vs adapting

Beyond journey preferences, panelists agree that the heyday of disruption by the likes of Airbnb and OTAs is just not over. If these disruptions proceed, even room service might develop into a factor of the previous, Ko anticipated.

“At first, OTA was a threat, and then Airbnb. The trajectory of the sharing economy is continuing, and we cannot prevent it. The question is how well and how far we can adapt. Even within the chain, there is now a centralised revenue management player. The hotel general manager is no longer managing within four walls. Be ready to share more. The smart ones will try to work with these forces to reduce costs and build the environment,” he mentioned.

Echoing the sentiment that such technological disruption nonetheless has many good years forward, Thadani added: “The industry is still under-utilising technology. There are still great opportunities to leverage technology and innovate. Look at brands like CitizenM running 400-room hotels with eight employees – that’s innovation”.

That mentioned, Bastien Touzeau, regional vice chairman growth at Hyatt Hotels Corporation, famous that the human contact can by no means go away fully.

“Technology is there to help and improve, but especially in the hospitality line, the ability to touch and live in reality – that’s something very hard to get technology to replace.”