VOICE OF LUXURY
VOICE LUXURY Ů
Shannon Knapp chief executive,
The Leading Hotels of the World
The boss of the independent luxury hotel collection talks trends, emerging destinations and loyalty with Hollie-Rae Brader
Q. How was 2024 for LHW and its members? We had another fantastic year – our third straight year of record revenue growth. It was also successful in terms of bringing new members into the community, as we added 35 hotels in some great destinations. Looking at the LHW business overall, we grew 13% year on year. Both our travel trade and retail business was very strong, and we also saw growth on an average daily rate level of about 3%. But the real growth has come from volume, and in 2024 we were up 9% on room nights and 8% on reservations. Year-on- year growth over the past few years has been 13%, 25% and 76%. When we compare against 2019, we are up nearly 60%.
Q. Which destinations performed strongly in 2024? A large proportion of our business is US travellers so the key destinations continue to be Italy, France and Spain. The US is also an important destination in its own right. We saw a notable trend for ‘coldcations’, with more people travelling to northern Europe. And we’ve seen a big increase in Alpine destinations, with Austria up nearly 40% and Switzerland up 10% year-on-year.
Q. Are your competitors other hotels or luxury goods? [Strategy and management consulting firm] Mckinsey & Company recently presented at our annual convention on luxury consumer trends and a chart they showed comparing the consumption of luxury goods and luxury experiences illustrated that the gap is widening in favour of luxury experiences – and the delta is getting bigger. People are choosing to invest in luxury experiences including travel, and they are making that trade-off – although, in reality, in this segment many don’t have to make that trade-off. But if they have to choose, they are choosing travel over things. We see that at LHW, because our guests are curious about the world; travel is not what our guests do, it’s who they are.
Q. How do you bring in new hotels to the collection? It’s a threefold approach. The first is through existing members that open new hotels – that, to me, is the greatest show of confidence and trust. The second way is through enquiries and we receive in excess of 650 enquiries a year passively from all over the world. The third way is that we have a proactive team
100 ASPIRE JANUARY 2025
aspiretravelclub.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120
