Past World’s Best Hotel Honor, Joanna Gunn Talks Rosewood’s Lifestyle Ambition

LONDON — Rosewood has each purpose to rejoice.

Last week its Hong Kong flagship by Victoria Harbour landed the highest spot on this 12 months’s The World’s 50 Best Hotels rating for the primary time.

But the Hong Kong-based luxurious lodge group is already considering forward, having revealed its ambition to rebrand, shifting from a hospitality supplier to a purpose-led cultural way of life model at the start of October.

The rebrand concerned a brand new font for the Rosewood wordmark, a brand new signature coloration shade known as discovery inexperienced, and a brand new RW monogram brand. A variety of sleepwear, bedding and bathrobes — which could possibly be known as “hotel merch” — with the brand new visible identities can be out there to buy on-line.

In an unique interview, Joanna Gunn, chief model officer of Rosewood Hotel Group, detailed the considering behind the rebrand and the steps required to make the transformation occur.

“Our brand evolution is reflective of the fundamental shift in luxury. We have witnessed consumer patterns evolve from personal collectibles toward experience collectibles,” stated Gunn, who had a high-profile profession within the style trade with luxurious retailer Lane Crawford earlier than becoming a member of Rosewood in 2020.

She added that the rebrand has additionally been an inside journey for the groups and has required an entire rewiring and rethinking of the ecosystem throughout advertising, digital, expertise and tradition, operations, design, business, retail and clienteling.

“Together we have been creating a collective vision: to imagine together the Rosewood experience. We see our opportunity in hospitality to become the gateway to culture, curiosity, and connection with purpose,” Gunn stated.

Strategically, the model elevation is about future-proofing: interesting to the subsequent era of worldwide luxurious vacationers by investing in emotional resonance, cultural relevance and social consciousness.

Gunn identified that inside the rising expertise economic system, with expertise being at this time’s social language, Rosewood’s model refresh is about amplifying its strategic shift from typical hospitality to “curators of discovery.” This requires key differentiators comparable to being considerate with the place it reveals up, activating inside the cultural cloth of its locations, deepening buyer relationships and viewing sustainability as stewardship.

“We are building a comprehensive lifestyle proposition where we follow our guests into the realms they value most — sincerity and cultural connection,” stated Gunn, including that Rosewood has a bonus in realizing what actually resonates with its core viewers because of many years of relationships with the purchasers relationship again to 1979, when American oil heiress Caroline Rose Hunt opened the primary Rosewood lodge in Dallas.

Now a member of the Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, Rosewood operates round 40 motels and resorts worldwide.

Many of them are thought of the benchmark of luxurious hospitality of their respective cities, comparable to Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, The Carlyle in New York and the newly unveiled Chancery Rosewood in London, which was the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

A respect for historical past has been a recurring theme in Rosewood’s current initiatives, particularly in Europe. Its Amsterdam location, for instance, opened this 12 months, occupies town’s former Palace of Justice, initially inbuilt 1665.

Rosewood Schloss Fuschl, in the meantime, is positioned within the former looking lodge of the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg, and its Munich department sits on the former Bavarian State Bank headquarters and the adjoining Palais Neuhaus-Preysing, initially an aristocratic residence from the 1700s.

Gunn emphasised that whereas the trade norm is to scale and concentrate on gateway cities, the staff at Rosewood seems to be at the place the viewers’s curiosity leads them.

“Lifestyle is the truest expression of what the new generation of consumers seeks. We have always been more than a collection of properties. We are selective with our development opportunities because we are not simply building hotels: we are creating postcards for the brand, each one a story of our brand and an interpretation of its destination and culture,” she touted.

“We go where others wait, creating a curated journey that extends beyond our walls, making our guests’ experiences more enriching by deeply understanding the destination, culture and place,” Gunn added.

But simply having motels in nice areas just isn’t sufficient, Gunn stated. As a life-style model, Rosewood has to curate an entire ecosystem of discovery round its properties.

Rosewood Amsterdam, for instance, is an artwork gallery in its personal proper, with an expansive assortment of greater than 1,000 artworks that highlight each new-generation expertise and Dutch masters. Rosewood Mandarina in Mexico is devoted to celebrating the artistry of the Indigenous Wixárika and Cora peoples.

Forthcoming Rosewood properties are being crafted to deepen their dedication to native sensibilities and function as properly, based on Gunn.

Both opening within the coming weeks, Rosewood Amaala in Saudi Arabia will discover regenerative experiences by way of wellbeing and sustainability, whereas being powered by renewable power, and its Courchevel location within the French Alps can be Rosewood’s first devoted winter sports activities property.

Rosewood Calistogain Napa Valley, Northern California, opening in 2027, will put a serious concentrate on meals, wine and regenerative residing, spanning 118 acres of land.

Existing Rosewood properties, each offline and on-line, are additionally being finetuned to higher combine with the area people and locations.

The Art Library idea in Rosewood São Paolo, as an illustration, is being reworked as a retail platform for native craft. There can be extra content material being created round retail, gastronomy and well-being for Rosewood’s digital channels to higher inform and join with its viewers.

To conclude, Gunn stated the model refresh offers a unified imaginative and prescient that amplifies what makes every of its locations exceptional.

“For Rosewood, this is about ensuring each destination acts as a profound enrichment of people and place, and requires everyone in our team to be part of this journey together,” she added.