For businesses looking
to truly immerse their
customers in their brand
world, hotels have become
the ultimate touchpoint.
From Retail
to Room
Service
Words
DANIELA WALKERIN APRIL 2019, luxury conglomerate LVMH
closed a deal to acquire Belmond Hotels
group for $3.2 billion. The deal adds another
brand to LVMH’s Hotel Management group,
whose portfolio includes the original brand
Cheval Blanc, and acquisitions such as Bul-
gari’s six hotels and Fendi’s boutique hotel in
Rome. Eventually, Belmond Hotels might have
Guerlain-branded spas as Bulgari does or a
Louis Vuitton café, like the one slated to open
inside an upcoming Cheval Blanc location in
London. It seems that each of LVMH’s brands
is becoming an experiential version of itself.
For the café especially, a reimagining of Louis
Vuitton as a food offer will be required – will
it be classic French, or a fusion mash-up
that reflects the decision to hire streetwear
designer Virgil Abloh as the brand’s artistic
director of menswear? As an increasing num-
ber of consumer brands enter the hospitality
market, answering the question of how to
reinterpret their key equities in such unfamil-
iar contexts will be vital to their success.
LVMH’s investment in Belmond can be seen
as the apex of a market shift that started
in the early 2000s, when luxury fashion
houses began to brandish their names on
hotels, beginning an era of outsiders enter-
ing hospitality. Almost 20 years ago, Versace
partnered with the Sunland Group to open
the first fashion-branded hotel in the world,
the Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast of
Australia. ‘It was far away from Paris, London
or Milan, so there was less risk involved,’
explains Mario Ortelli, managing partner at
luxury strategic agency Ortelli&Co. Versace
was the first luxury brand to launch its own
homeware line, so it was a logical, if grand,
next step. ‘It offered a way to showcase the
many facets of the Versace brand. It was an
experiment for sure, but a successful experi-
ment,’ says Ortelli. Luxury houses like Armani
and Ferragamo quickly followed suit. In 2006
LVMH, owner of brands like Louis Vuitton
and Moet Hennessy, entered the market by
launching the Cheval Blanc hotel in French »136 HOSPITALITY