through capsule collections and radio.
A hotel client brought me to Mykonos at the sharp end of the shoulder season late last year. The temperatures hovered around 15 degrees Celsius (look it up), with nary a soul wandering the labyrinthine streets of the Town.
Most shops were closed. Most restaurants too, save for a couple at the old port, who’d hung transparent vinyl from their awnings against the always bracing, now colder, wind.
We ate at the same spot every night, and spoke about his hotel and the island, and the challenges facing any hospitality business in places where success depends on the right kind of crowd finding it attractive.
I’m not speaking of travel influencers, whose pay to play approach is typically, and awkwardly, transparent. Rather, about that elusive, desirable global creative set and the entrepreneurs and CEOs and VCs who tend to follow in their orbit.
Their desires and whims are hard to predict, or plan for. Do they go for experiences as hard as families on vacation do? Do they want a hotel full of Instagrammable corners? Or do they simply want to go where the people they find most interesting go?
The last challenge is the hardest. A hotel’s fate often hinges on the popularity of their location. But every hotel strives for what the very best have— a brand name so strong that even down cycles in location (something Mykonos is feeling acutely) ensure a reliable stream of regulars.
Think La Sirenuse on the Amalfi Coast, or Hotel Il Pelicano, the dream of a British aviator and American socialite in 1965 that has managed not just to maintain relevance, but reshape itself for new generations.
They have coherent brands that mean something to their guests. With little more than photography, some video, and a lot of flowery copy, they work hard to craft a digital presence that engages existing guests and inspires new ones. It’s hard work. Redesigns only happen every 5 to 7 years, and a logo can only be renewed so often, so they need to figure out different ways to stay relevant. But there are a couple of strategies that push beyond the predictable.
Here are two.
Sporty & Rich 👕 The L.A. clothing brand was launched on the strength of founder Emily Oberg’s savvy digital presence and her Instagram mood board. From it, the business newbie built a growing universe around little more than staple silhouettes and looks with the brand’s name embroidered on it. She demystifies it all in this blog post that manages to be both compelling and deflating at the same time. The brand has offices in Los Angeles and Paris, and a flagship store in New York with an attached café (hitting not just the standard destinations, but the latest brick & mortar fashion trend). But what popped out last year was their capsule collections for three hotels (belonging to two hotel groups): The Carlyle in New York, the legendary Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in the Côte d’Azur, and Le Bristol in Paris. Aside from the logos writ large on various basic tops, hats, and loungewear, the products themselves are unremarkable, save perhaps for their margin (€100 for a tote bag 👀). No, this is about universe building from Sporty & Rich and audience co-opting from the hotels. Only the most well-heeled hotels have the budget or creative appetite to position their rooms, lobbies, and bars as supporting acts in crafted fashion dramas (or enter into a merchandising agreement in the first place). Sporty & Rich provides the models, the aesthetic, and the clothes to spice up their partners’ social handles and maybe even increase their following. The brand also brings a young demographic that loves to indulge in experiences when they travel (if every survey in recent memory is to be believed), so the idea of a pricey souvenir to commemorate a destination (or aspire to visit one) fits. In exchange, the hotels lend the 6-year-old label a legitimacy with a sought after audience: presumably the one the label is named after.
Eaton Workshop 🎙️ I checked out the Eaton Workshop Hotel in Washington D.C. in the late side of the 2010s, and the first thing I visited was their radio booth, where a DJ was streaming his set. There’s another hotel, The Line, in nearby Adams Morgan that built a podcast booth right next to the lobby, inviting local podcasters to come in and be part of the programming. But Eaton’s approach is different, rooted in a deliberate community-building mission that forms the company’s foundation. With hotels in Hong Kong and D.C., the Eaton is the brainchild of Katherine Lo who grew up in a number of cultures, never feeling truly at home in any of them. Her letter introducing the hotel is eyebrow raising in its intention. She sees the Eaton’s role as “utilizing hospitality as a force for doing good in the world, and building the ultimate gathering place under one roof that creates optimal conditions for people to thrive.” For an industry in which driving repeat visits from out-of-town guests is priority number 1, it’s a rare strategy. This is how she frames it: “When you stay at an Eaton hotel, you become a patron of the arts and social and environmental impact.” Local activist, community, and cultural groups use the Eaton’s meeting rooms in both cities, free of charge. Some of them host shows in the Eaton’s radio booth, which — across both locations — has broadcast more than 2,000 shows since it launched in 2018. It’s a charming tactic. The radio stream is available on Mixcloud, and is as eclectic as the local communities from which it draws its talent: D.C. mixes amateur sports talk, cultural interviews, and Afro-Cuban jazz; Hong Kong features DJs spinning unexpected Chinese pop and alt music. The programming evokes the alt-weeklies of the 1990s I grew up with in San Francisco with one exception: they manage to make the hyperlocal feel global and connected, almost like the beginnings of the community the Eaton aspires to build.
