The new hottest place in the world for Luxe-Hotel openings? It is not a distant island, Saudi Arabia, or wherever the last incentives attract operators (see also: Saudi Arabia). It is London.
The list of the British capital of spot points which soon opened. There is a new rosewood, housed in the former American embassy designed by Saarinen, on her way. A vast meaning will open up to the reused complex which is the old department store in Whiteley. Meanwhile, a site operated by inn in the Mayfair building will fill the house online of the in & out club. They will join other recent arrivals, be it the peninsula, the second site of Mandarin Oriental in LondonEmory and the best of the best winners Raffle And The Broadwick to Soho.
There has been such a wave of five -star arrivals, the largest for a decade or more, depending on estimates, the total number of luxury hotel rooms offered accordingly reach almost 20,000 – or around 4% nearly night.
“It is impressive and unusual in a global established walk like that, ”explains Christina Jelski, who covers hotels for the Bible industry Travel every week. “”Luxury has developed, but the rate and the pace of this are definitely an anomaly. And it is also one who is five -star luxury. »»
So what's going on? Why is a mature market like London, already an ultra-high-ning center, seeing an overabundance of these arrivals in the event of a short succession? It may seem surprising, but there was a clear, even desperate need, of higher -end crashpads.
“For years, London has been poorly served by the number of luxury hotel rooms against demand. The best hotels were sold very, very quickly, ”explains Winston Chesterfield, who follows the luxury sector via his business, Barton Consulting.
Six senses breathes a new life in the old Whiteley department store.
Gracity of six London senses
Many names of names, such as the Connaught, Have a surprisingly small number of rooms (in this case, only 121), which has often frustrated the last minute and deep travelers. Among them, a key demography more than any other: rich families and the Middle East wishing to decamper in London to escape the hot heat at home. They often spend six months, from each April, treating a five -star hotel like their temporary house.
“London is the n ° 1 summer destination that they use as a base, where they will probably take whole floors of a hotel and only five stars,” continues Chesterfield. “And these people say that the longer stands are completely exhausted. So the answer condemned to what is happening? The number of rooms, in really better hotels, has always been relatively small.”
The tightness in the supply is therefore a factor in traction, but Chesterfield stresses that there is another convincing element: real estate. London has The fifth largest group of Uhnw residents in the world, but Ranked second, only after New YorkFor people who have houses in 2023. If you are rich and you are in a globe, you probably have (or want to buy) a foot-to-terre there-and the hotel's brands will be happy to provide it. Most of the new openings are therefore both hotels and combined residences, which means that the old ones act as much as a marketing scheme as a money manufacturer.
Raffles London has some of the hottest brand residences in the city.
With the kind permission of Raffles Hotels
“The family behind the peninsula wanted to make money on the London real estate market, and investors in real estate were very happy to finance this hotel,” said Chesterfield.
The Hindjas, one of the richest clans in Great Britain, are the owners of the historic building in which the Raffles property is hosted; Half is allocated to the hotel, while the rest was offered as 85 apartments (with Michael Bloomberg and the executive of Goldman Sachs Todd Leland would have among the buyers). You can understand the strategy by removing the British version of Monopoly and looking at the most expensive squares to land: Park Lane and Mayfair.
“Dark blue colors?” This is where everyone who comes to London think they have to buy, ”explains Chesterfield.
Helen Brocklebank, who directs Walpole, the commercial association which represents the British luxury sector, adds that “brand residences are sold very quickly and are in shortage. I think there could be one in the peninsula. ”
For hotel brands, there are also pragmatic reasons to target London. Construction of construction costs, which reliably 5% checked each year from 2014 to 2019, crowded From the pandemic, with increases of 8% in 2022 and 6% in 2023. Mature markets like London are therefore ideal shelters, because almost all central spots will reuse a building, whether it is a department store (six senses), a club of private members (inn) or embassy (Rosewood). And a magnificent hotel in London also has a halo effect on the brand that exploits it.
“It can be logical for the hiking effect to the rest of the portfolio of this crown jewel,” said Traveling weekly Jelski.
Despite the stocks of stocks, hoteliers expect to earn money. The prices for five -star hotels around the world have skyrocketed from the pandemic. In London, according to the Costar of the industry tracker, the night price for a luxury class hotel in 2019 was £ 349.63; Five years later, he had climbed to £ 470.97, an increase of more than a third. Compare this to the London market as a whole, where the average rate went from £ 153.95 to 194.86, an increase of about a quarter.
The residences of the peninsula in London are essentially exhausted.
London peninsula residences
However, there are conservation notes. Traveling master Jonathan Alder de Jonathan's Travel says that his customers do not provide for visits to London with as much frequency or enthusiasm as they could have done in the past.
“We have seen a massive slowdown in desire for the United Kingdom, it was much more, but at the moment, the first three are Italy, France and Switzerland,” he said.
“We see a shortening of the time spent in London,” recognizes Stacy Fischer, another travel master who directs the homonymous firm. “This is generally part of a greater European escape, and the United Kingdom draws people from London in places like Cotswolds.”
It should be noted, of course, that the previous British government has canceled the advantage of tax franchise purchases for tourists, calling tax relief already explored) They are the same people as all five -star hotels continue, but now they are just as likely to go to Paris – and shop in tax franchise – as a traditional ride in London.
And yet, industry observers seem optimistic about the prospects of London hospitality. Real estate office JLL's latest research document On hotels predicted that the opening of downtown hotels, in particular in London, New York and Tokyo, will increase in the short term, which means that the five-star landscape is far from suiaturated.
“It is a place for business and leisure,” explains Brocklebank de Walpole. “There are no other cities like that, and the mixture is what really makes things work. These are long -term investments, and no one really expects a return on investment over the next year.”
