Starwood Capital Group, a private investment firm that manages more than $19 billion in assets, will

GLOBAL REPORT The idea of luxury in hospitality is slowly but steadily evolving from a picture of glamour and opulence automobile travel directions to an inspiration of comfortable class, and luxury hotel brands have taken notice, tweaking their offerings to accommodate wider groups of travelers.
We raised the concept here of the mega traveler, and the idea that it s not just the wealthy and the super wealthy who are traveling and staying in high-end and luxury hotels; automobile travel directions it s, in fact, many professionals who are spending 50, 100, 150 days a year on the road, said Frits van Paasschen, CEO of Starwood Hotels Resorts Worldwide, which has three luxury brands under its umbrella and is considering adding a fourth .
Van Paasschen said Starwood s W brand which he said wasn t launched as a luxury automobile travel directions brand but was able to capture high enough rates to catapult into the segment is capitalizing automobile travel directions on a clear trend in luxury, which is towards automobile travel directions each individual defining what luxury means for them.
If there s a social change going on here, it s that today luxury has less to do with formality and what one is supposed to do and more and more to do with what I want to do, van Paasschen said. Because I and I am saying I as a traveler have the means and the desire to enjoy a luxurious experience, but I have no desire to wear a tie. I want to wear my jeans. I want to enjoy myself. I want to partake in popular culture and design.
Starwood Capital Group, a private investment firm that manages more than $19 billion in assets, will open in 2014 the first hotels under its two new luxury brands Baccarat Hotels Resorts and 1 Hotels Resorts. The first two 1 Hotels in Miami and Central Park in New York opening in 2014 will be conversions; the Brooklyn* automobile travel directions property opening in 2015 will be a new build. Additionally, the first two Baccarat properties in New York and Rabat, Morocco will be new construction.
Starwood Capital recently appointed C. Scott Rohm as president of SH Group, the company s hotel brand management company that runs the branding, marketing, sales and operation of the company s assets.
Customers will continue automobile travel directions to drive towards more customized and personal service, Rohm said of the evolving luxury space. The model of having beautiful rooms and nice staff that treats everyone in the same manner is dead in the true luxury space. It s all about the individual s wants and needs.
Jan Freitag, senior VP of global development with STR, parent company of HotelNewsNow.com, said today s luxury brands are moving to a more accessible luxury to target the Generation X and Generation Y traveler.
Freitag said the luxury segment automobile travel directions in the United States is one of the only segments in which revenue per available automobile travel directions room has not returned to pre-recession levels. The segment is experiencing strong automobile travel directions year-over-year growth in all performance metrics, but the fact that it fell so far during 2008 to 2010 means its recovery was longer.
(President) Obama s point that luxury travel was frivolous really hurt, he said. On the business side, people were just afraid they would end up on the cover of the Wall Street Journal automobile travel directions so they curtailed incentive travel. If you went to Vegas, it looked like you were wasting money no matter the fact that Vegas rates were half the price of other places. People just didn t want to be seen as wasting money.
Globally, the luxury segment RevPAR automobile travel directions for the month of February in Europe was $170.22; in the Middle East/Africa region was $203.21; and the Asia/Pacific was $153.13,according to STR Global, sister company of HotelNewsNow.com.
Marriott International has more than 50,000 rooms worldwide in the luxury segment, which for Marriott consists of Ritz-Carlton, Ritz-Carlton Reserve, JW Marriott, Bulgari and its newest brand, Edition Hotels.
Up next for Edition is the first company-developed hotel, which is expected to open in London in mid-2013, with Miami and New York to follow. Over a five-year period, Marriott is investing roughly $900 million to jump-start automobile travel directions the brand, Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson said on a recent earnings call.
In the U.S. as of February, there were 20 luxury hotels representing 7,665 rooms in the total active pipeline, which includes the in construction, planning and final planning stages, according to STR. Ten are currently under construction. The luxury segment accounted for 0.7% of all hotels in the pipeline.
We ve expanded our luxury brands at a much faster rate, van Paasschen said. I think it speaks not only to the strength of our platform in supporting our three luxury brands but also at the same time the growth in demand for luxury that we ve seen come back in an exponential way certainly since the crisis.
Accor s focus lies with the luxury and upscale segments, evidenced by the fact that the company intends to expand from 300 to 400 hotels in those two segments by 2015, according to a company automobile travel directions news release .
Currently, 42% of Accor s luxury and upscale hotels are located in Asia/Pacific and 35% are in European cities, the company said. Growth will come in emerging markets, including Latin America, Middle East and Asia/Pacific.
Designed by Ivanka Trump in cooperation with WATG s Wimberly Interiors, guestrooms at Doral will be elegant and luxurious, with rich accents, blended automobile travel directions with patterns and imagery inspired by the sport of golf, Ivanka Trump, executive VP of development and acquisitions, said in a news release.
The company s service philosophy is to look at each guest as a unique, important guest; thus, the service they receive is also unique, which in and of itself makes for a luxurious service experience, he said during the recent International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin.
You are fully responsible for the content automobile travel directions you post. The opinions expressed in comments do not necessarily reflect automobile travel directions the opinions of HotelNewsNow.com or its parent company, Smith Travel Research and its affiliated automobile travel directions companies.