Unpacked by AFAR (podcast) by AFAR - Dailymotion

AFAR

In this podcast, AFAR editors talk with travelers and industry professionals to unpack some of the more complicated questions around travel.

Transcript

00:00Hey everyone and welcome to the third season of Unpacked, a podcast by afar. I'm Aislinn and as

00:05you can probably tell by this giant microphone in front of my face, I host the show. Every week on

00:11the podcast we unpack a different tricky topic in travel and this week is no exception. This is

00:18Unpacked. Hi Jen, how are you? Hey Aislinn, I'm good. How are you doing? Good. Welcome back to

00:31Unpacked. I'm sorry we're not doing this in person like we had tried to last week. Oh I know but it's

00:37kind of the nature of this company right? We're always somewhere and it's kind of great but it

00:42was so good to see you recently in Toronto. Yeah yeah and are you back home in the Pacific

00:48Northwest? Like where in the world are you right now? I am so I'm back in the Pacific Northwest in

00:53my base on Orcas Island, Washington in the San Juan Islands for Archipelago which I it's just my

00:58favorite place in the world and I'm very lucky to be able to spend a lot of time here when I'm not in

01:03New York. You are living the dream. Well you are our resident hotels expert and I love that you have

01:11a very special relationship with hotels. Would you mind sharing this journey of how you grew up and how

01:18you kind of entered this hotel space? Yeah you know hotels are a really special thing for me you

01:23know I kind of entered the travel publishing world. Kind of just with a wanderlust you know like we all

01:29have right but I kind of like look back and think maybe it was like it was meant to be and I was meant

01:33to kind of kind of have this role. My father was a hotelier. I was actually born and raised in the hotel

01:38world. My first home was a hotel in Manila in the Philippines. My dad was the GM of a hotel there.

01:44He was also the GM of the Plaza Hotel which is a very famous hotel in New York City.

01:50So I spent my childhood with kind of a foot in Asia and a foot in the United States following my

01:56dad's career basically and living in hotels most of the time and kind of experiencing luxury

02:01hospitality firsthand but also kind of from this sort of insider back of the house point of view. So

02:06yeah funny like a lot of people joke that I was a kind of a little Eloise from the Plaza Hotel just

02:12because I actually did live in the Plaza Hotel which was in hindsight amazing. I mean you know

02:17I was eight years old and I had a sauna in my bathroom and couldn't care less and I look back

02:22and I'm like why was it wasted on this eight-year-old like I would have been in there all the time had I

02:27been living there today. Maybe someday you can go back to living in the plaza and then you'll really

02:32use that sauna in your bathroom. I feel like you wrote a story and didn't you talk about like your mom

02:39having like a rice cooker in your hotel room? Yeah I did write a lot about how to create a sense

02:44of home in all of these places that are not home right or like what home means when you're

02:49moving every you know two to three years and my mom's rice cooker was that item right like she

02:54never let us order room service. We were never allowed to do any of the fancy hotel things whenever

02:59we lived in but the rice cooker for me was sort of that symbol of we're gonna make dinner

03:04like a normal family even though you can order like beef tartare downstairs or whatever it is.

03:10Yeah it was like kind of my this is home. My mom's rice cooker is home. I mean very impressive on her

03:14part that she managed to kind of create this consistency for you. Yeah. As you're growing up.

03:20Yeah it was pretty amazing. Well you are uniquely positioned as as a Fars hotels expert. What do you love

03:28about hotels and this industry? What's your passion? Well if you think about whenever you travel you

03:35think about like the just think about like the amount of money that you spend on a trip right of

03:40course there's the the air ticket which can be expensive depending on the time you book and

03:45everything but one of the biggest things we're going to spend on is our hotel and if you think about

03:49the impact of that on the place you're visiting the people you're going to see in that destination

03:54there's so much of a like a broader impact so like the place you choose to stay a is going to impact

03:59how you experience that destination and it's also going to have an impact on the people in the places

04:05that you're visiting so think about all the staff people that people hire at hotels the local suppliers

04:11the way they operate whether it's sustainably or not what kind of vibe they create for locals and

04:15restaurants so if you for instance care about local ownership and if you care about sustainability

04:20however the hotel acts is what you're buying into so i think it's a very important part of the

04:26a financial decision b experiential part of your trip and c the impact that you'll have on your

04:32destination i do love that afar put so much emphasis on that aspect of like how does this hotel and your

04:39experience there impact the local community and how are they pulled in it's certainly one of the key

04:44things we think about when we're looking at hotels for our especially our best new hotels list

04:48yes which we are here to talk about today so how did you approach that list and how did things like

04:54that local impact factor into your decision making so these things i think you know there's more choice

05:01than ever when it comes to hotels like one a new luxury hotel opens every day it seems and i think for

05:08the traveler especially for the afar traveler we want those enriching experiences but again we want

05:14experiences that are also benefiting our destinations and bringing kind of positive impact to it so um

05:20what we think about we kind of i mean it's kind of crazy we canvas the entire world for hotels that we

05:26feel are real game changers in their in the places where they are so in london where there's a lot of

05:32hotels we think about what's already there and what this new hotel is bringing and what how there may be

05:37like elevating what what you can already find how they are creating new more sustainable operations

05:43how they are hiring better so we look at everything i mean we also want the most incredible experiences

05:50of destinations around the world so if you're going to nepal we want that hotel to unlock a new

05:57side of nepal for you if you're going to be in new york we want that new york hotel to reveal something

06:03else that you didn't already know about the city so we kind of look for that special like experiential

06:09quality but again we're also looking at the back of the house and saying how are you operating who are

06:14you hiring what kinds of sustainability practices are you are you employing like all of those things

06:19kind of factor into this list that we we call and we're very careful about calling the list into a

06:26very kind of small well curated selection of places that we ultimately hope will inspire people to

06:33travel to those places we see them as these hotels as reasons enough to travel to those those places

06:39and then i love that idea that then the hotel is one of the keys to unlocking that destination i mean

06:45it just kind of magnifies the impact that they can have so there are 31 hotels on this list which is

06:52i believe twice as many as there were last year what was behind that kind of change and that increase

06:58so actually this is not that big of a list a lot of publications do these lists of maybe 100 hotels

07:05we chose 31 hotels which is actually bigger for us it's more than double the size of the list that

07:09we had last year um but it's still still pretty small in the grand scheme of things and the reason

07:14we keep them small is because we want to really really kind of nail like which hotels were true game

07:21changers in their destinations and which ones are really setting a new standard 31 hotels allows us to

07:27to reach a broader scope of types of luxury experiences so that can range from a tented camp

07:34in africa to a beautiful old war office building that was restored in london where

07:41winston churchill once made wartime decisions wow wow that is incredible and one of the things that i do

07:48appreciate about a lot of the work that we do just in general at afar is that we vet these things

07:53in person right we have boots on the ground people on the ground that can help us understand why

07:58something's important and i believe that you've you visited several of these hotels last year do you

08:03share the ones that you you met absolutely so yeah i mean a few of them one of the things i'm i mean

08:10you know how much i love africa is when i talk about it all the time and last year last year i actually

08:17got to do a hard hat tour of loapi in uh south africa it's in the kalahari desert uh it's in

08:22oh it's amazing it's this beautiful landscape that was rewilded it was former farming land that was

08:28that was turned into a private reserve and you have rhinos you have lions you have like all of the

08:35all like pangolins it's like actually a really great place to see pangolins and they own oh it's

08:40amazing and they only had two types of accommodations there and they're adding this third very exclusive

08:46private combination where you get your own car you have you have you can kind of do a more family

08:51centric a vacation if you want to or a group centric one um and the footprint is so low when

08:56you're there you're still not going to run into any vehicles outside of maybe like one other vehicle

09:01from another lodge like you have the place to yourself and the conservation story there is

09:06incredible so just for me to be able to see and i love a hard hat tour like i'm always in these

09:11hotels before yeah it's one of those things where when i get in before they the hotels

09:16open i feel this sense of ownership when the hotel does really well i'm like oh yes i remember i

09:21remember seeing when you didn't even have the bathtubs in the rooms or whatever i mean it's

09:25like that kind of backstory thing that kind of helps me get jazzed about a place and it really

09:30helps me understand how much effort goes into these places and i mean hotels are multi-year

09:36expensive projects that don't have a quick roi you have to have an owner that has the buy-in on all of

09:42the values that that hotel company brings so it's a really interesting kind of back of the house

09:46process i also say that the carlton can in in france and that's like the can film festival can

09:52the carlton was one of those i mean still it's got this beautiful kind of really ornate exterior a lot

10:01of celebrities have stayed there and it's had this reinvention that you would not believe it's so

10:06incredible it's got all the trappings of kind of modern luxury like you feel like you're part of

10:12history but you also feel you're like you're getting taken care of in a contemporary way and

10:16i just remember like one small tweak in a room configuration can change everything so the the

10:22carlton can has these beautiful views out to the sea like from the windows with these like kind of

10:27wrought iron balconies and they have they now have this this the kind of seat this chase lounge that sits

10:33right in front of that view there's like no mistake that that is the most important part of your

10:38guest room experiences to take all of that in so i just loved being able to experience that

10:42firsthand and say yeah i can't think of a better way to experience can it was like looking at a

10:48postcard it was so beautiful well i have not stayed at any of these hotels but there are several that i'm

10:52kind of currently obsessed with so for example the kona village on the island of hawaii and they have

10:57such a cool sustainability story which i also know is very important to you it's important to me

11:02and it's both a kind of a cultural and an environmental story i'm actually checking into

11:07the kona village uh it's a rosewood resort in early april so i will get first hand knowledge so

11:14so we had a reviewer go she fell in love with it this is one i've been following for a long time

11:19this is a hotel that my so my mother is from hawaii and she so she knows i mean she this is a hotel

11:25that was an icon since the 60s like everyone knows kona village this beautiful it's on the island of

11:31hawaii it's all about swaying palms and it's like right by these blue waters of a bay i mean the

11:37setting could not be more magical um there are even like ancient petroglyph fields nearby and

11:43everything it's it's pretty incredible so sadly a tsunami destroyed the resort in 2011 it was really

11:49really tragic and rosewood hotels came in to do a reimagination and a renovation of the the property

11:56the thing that they did which i love is they brought in a cultural community composed of

12:01hawaii island residents and honored elders who could really take ownership in terms of what that

12:07hotel hospitality experience would be like and how that hotel would interact with the destination so

12:12it was really incredible to see rosewood step up and say like we're not just going to re-imagine

12:17this and put new bells and whistles on it we really want to create an experience that feels good

12:23to locals as much as it does to people who are coming to visit and there's a lot of things that

12:28are going to be reflected in the guest experiences so there's a lot of like preservation focused

12:34organizations that are going to allow visitors to come in and see monk seal rehab centers and

12:41understand like the the landscape and the history and the culture better and everything and so all

12:45of that is sort of a co-authorship and i think co-authorship is so important when you're looking at

12:49places with a lot of uh indigenous roots and a lot of indigenous storytelling it's like who's telling

12:55those stories and it's very clear that kona village wants that to be in the hands of native hawaiians

13:00so that's incredible i'm really looking forward to seeing it myself i also was curious if you are

13:07seeing more and more hotels that are having these conversations that are really bringing local

13:12communities in especially you know perhaps marginalized or indigenous communities is that more of a trend

13:17that you've been seeing absolutely i think that if you want to be a hotel that speaks to an afar

13:24audience when that hope that audience member pulls back the curtain they must be able to see some sort

13:30of engagement with any sort of local communities or cultures where they're located so i mean kona village

13:37is a great example i just think so many of our readers care about where their dollars are going and what

13:44their dollars are supporting and that local engagement is i think essential now and it's cool to see that

13:50hotels are no longer so much imposing their vision and really kind of carrying forward that conversation

13:56well you mentioned nepal earlier and i also am obsessed with the new shintamani mustang there why is it so

14:05unique uh so there's so many things about this hotel so the person behind it is bill bensley he's a designer and architect

14:13he's based in bangkok i've met him a couple of times he's a really awesome like out there guy um he is a very prolific hotel

14:21designer and he has designed some of my favorite hotels around the world i mean there's the i mean just trying to think of like the

14:27siam in bangkok there's a hotel called shintamani wild in cambodia where get this crazy story

14:33he he he and the business partner pretended that they were loggers at a logging auction for forest land

14:41in cambodia and then they transformed this little like 500 acre plot of land that was supposed to go

14:46to loggers into a conservation area where there was a tented camp and so there's a tent camp in cambodia

14:53there's wildlife that goes through it there's all these conservation projects they actually brought

14:57someone in from from south africa to run the place as a gm because they want to have that sort of

15:02conservation mindset he also has a place opening in republic of congo in the next year or so so

15:08bill bensley he's so sensitive to conservation to cultures to the kind of preservation of lands

15:15and biodiversity so i i just love everything he does he's very sustainable and his designs are so

15:21dreamy and fun and out there so when i heard that he was opening in mustang nepal which is in this very

15:28like kind of less visited area of nepal there isn't a lot of luxury there i stopped in my tracks and

15:35absolutely could not wait to hear what this would be like a few writers have been through and we sent

15:39a reviewer and i mean it sounds incredible it's sitting at 9 200 square feet on this like rocky

15:47mountainside there are these like suites that are furnished with all this beautiful kind of himalayan

15:52inspired um uh interiors and architecture it's just it's just all bill bensley it's very responsible

15:59and sustainable they have a lot of connections to local communities which i i really love and it brings

16:04a new level of luxury to a place that doesn't doesn't have a lot of foot traffic yet so it's uh it'll

16:10bring a new audience i think to that area which i'm excited about how cool is this on your horizon as

16:16a personal visit oh my goodness as soon as i can get to nepal this will be my first stop i just can't

16:23wait to experience the region through the lens of bill bensley and all of the local stakeholders

16:29he brought in i mean i have mad respect for anyone who would go in pretending to be a logger and then

16:35flip it around and make a conservation project like you got to follow somebody like that i know

16:40that's incredible yeah and when i heard that i was like you've got my vote bill bensley anytime you

16:45open a hotel yeah and watch for that that republic of congo one keep an eye out for that because it's

16:50going to be another big game changer for that region i was really impressed by the restoration

16:55of the raffles london at the owoh is this one of the most historical places on the list because it

17:01kind of read that way to me oh my goodness absolutely thank you for asking about this one because i'm

17:07so excited about it last year was it last year i visited the hotel as i like to do on a hard

17:14hat tour before it opened yeah the hard hat tour took three hours because that's unusual it is

17:22unusual usually a hard hat tour you kind of like pop through a couple of rooms you see the the dining

17:27spaces you see the spa and everything but there is so much history in this building and so much to say

17:32that it took and it's so huge i mean so the owoh stands for old war office it's it's where

17:38winston churchill presided uh lawrence of arabia worked here um mi 15 and 16 were both kind of

17:46born here the building cameos and five james bond picks which is crazy um yeah it's incredible there

17:53are guest rooms there's 120 guest rooms and there's there are residences too uh the owners are the hinduja

17:59family they're one of the most affluent families in the uk and one of the ideas behind this hotel was to

18:06leave a legacy behind in london and i mean i can't think of a better legacy this is like

18:11incredible location um near the horse guards and buckingham palace um the building itself was

18:19done with so much care and love i mean you have these like ornate banisters that are made with with

18:25stone and you have these like beautiful carved wooden interiors i mean i remember walking into like a

18:32closet of a suite thinking it was a suite and the person giving me the tour said no no no we are in

18:38a closet and it was the size of two of my new york apartments it was gigantic so this place is very

18:46special just from the opulence of it but also from the history of it i mean you'd see why it's like a

18:51movie setting kind of place and you know yeah yeah yeah and vincent churchill made these huge wartime

18:57decisions there you feel kind of like you're part of the buckingham palace story as well because

19:01you're so nearby so yeah it's pretty incredible and it was a multi-year restoration project with

19:06a lot of love and care raffles is the luxury hotel group that's running it and they're doing

19:11a very fine job um our own anya van brebs bremsen went and reviewed it and she fell in love she loved

19:17the hotel and she loved everything that they they did with it and they have a maro colo greco restaurant

19:22which is a big big marquee restaurant for them so yeah no i think it'll really turn it and turn white

19:27hall that kind of sleepy at night white hall is anya likes to describe it into a dining and drinking

19:32hub i mean can i just go and like book the hotel or the closet it sounds like you don't even need

19:38the room can i just that sounds good exactly the closet's fine yeah whatever have they set aside

19:48parts of the hotel as specifically kind of preservation that are almost a museum like

19:54the idea is to live in the historic parts of the hotel so there isn't anything that feel that i think

19:59that's the great part about hotels by the way the ones that are really historic is that you are in a

20:04living piece of history so they like hotel companies that restore these these hotels in a in a way that

20:10is exciting they're usually giving people access to those rooms and letting them live in them i mean

20:16you're like kind of living next to the fireplace that was there originally right so there's less

20:21of the sort of cordonoff museum feel and more of the like i get to have this all to myself which is

20:27what i think the o-o did so well well kind of broadening out to some you know categories that

20:33people might travel for so what would you recommend from the list for people who really love design or

20:38architecture aside this is a fun one this is such a fun one so one that immediately comes to mind so

20:45there's a designer named martin brudnitski who he's a swedish interiors maven he is very prolific in

20:52the hotel world right now but he's done some really amazing projects that have stood out on

20:56our list so a couple of them are the fifth avenue hotel in new york which is all about the sort of

21:01like gilded age glamour of new york history and then the le grand mazarin in paris so now both of

21:07these hotels if you look at them they're all about like bright colors and maximalism and that's a huge

21:12trend that i'm seeing right now in the hotel world gone are the quiet kind of beige on beige spaces i

21:18mean they're still around but there's definitely more of a move towards like this maximalist kind

21:23of sophisticated maximalism where you're getting colors on colors and patterns on patterns i mean

21:29you're seeing this also at a new hotel that just opened in new york called the warren street hotel

21:33which is definitely another one to watch for uh the next year but this maximalism trend is kind of in

21:39full force and martin brudzinski is a perfect example of that and the grand mazarin in paris

21:44and the fifth avenue hotel are two musts to check out on our list another one that i feel has a

21:50different flavor and it's kind of different take on design is violino di oro in venice now this is a

21:56family-owned italian company that opened a hotel in venice with the idea of showcasing local artisans so

22:03everything you touch from the rebelli fabrics to the hand-placed venetian seminato torazzo flooring

22:09to the venini chandeliers are all sourced locally or regionally i mean everything you experience in

22:15the hotel will have a story and you're probably going to want to buy the tiles and the murana glass

22:21chandeliers and the great thing is that the owners know exactly how to source them so if you are looking

22:26to renovate your home go to violino di oro and just take your pick and go visit the ateliers it's

22:32pretty amazing you know bring a couple of extra suitcases or get ready to ship things back

22:38a wonderful day and redecorate your house so those sound like fantastic places for people who travel

22:46specifically for design or art what about people who want to be immersed in the outdoors or you know

22:51have a nature experience so we were just talking about shinta mani mustang i think that is actually an

22:58amazing way to get into the the himalayas the nepalese himalayas i mean you're in this kingdom

23:05i mean so mustang is a himalayan kingdom that was only fully open to western tourists in 1992

23:11so day trips or drives to ancient mud villages tours around buddhist pilgrimage sites hikes to glacier

23:19lakes that end with these picnic lunches that are soundtracked by the rumble of a distant avalanche

23:24as one of our writers uh describes um so you're right there next to nature while also having this

23:31very kind of cushy luxury experience in the states there's ulu moab which is a spinoff of under canvas

23:37if you've heard of under canvas they're all about kind of glamping tend to camp experience now ulu

23:43in moab utah is the next level luxury of that but you're still fully connected to nature in that

23:49beautiful sort of rust colored landscape but you have a king-size bed and you have a bathroom with

23:54a rain shower and you have seating areas with west elm slingback chairs you know it's a very

24:01luxury experience but all very thoughtfully and sustainably uh created but also you're fully

24:07kind of immersed in nature and of course luapi in south africa again this this conservation project

24:14is so special and you're seeing endangered rhinos you're seeing lions you're seeing pangolins at

24:20night and you get access to all these researchers who can unlock that's the stories in nature that you

24:26might not already see i mean when i was at luapi i met a phd candidate who is working on puff adders

24:33which is a type of snake a very poisonous type of snake and she she is so passionate about it and

24:39she actually she tags snakes she puts like little tracking devices and snakes and can find one for

24:44you and it's so funny usually usually when i'm in the african bush i am looking to avoid snakes but

24:50she's like no no no i will take you to one and i'm like okay yeah yeah is that too close to nature for

24:56you ace lynn it was for me but i don't know um but i love the idea of having access to all of

25:02those people who can do that storytelling i mean they're they're hard or conservationists so yeah

25:06there are a lot on our list that really kind of tap into that those outdoorsy nature experiences if

25:10you're looking for that how cool i think i might be swayed by that person's passion and be like i do

25:16think i should see a puff adder because i'm here and maybe i'll never see one again and you can

25:20protect me from it if it goes crazy yeah you get a little more empathy for our certain you know our

25:26danger noodle friends as a word that takes all the sting out of the danger noodles oh wonderful

25:35well okay what about say something like the category of wellness which does seem to have become bigger

25:42and just you know people seem to be seeking that out more so if i were to seek it out i would want

25:47to go to the six senses in india because wow that just sounds incredible is that one of the places

25:52that you would recommend you are spot on on the wellness trends so uh and six senses vana is like

25:58the perfect example of this so it's what's interesting right now so you have in the hospitality

26:04world you have destination spas which are spas first and then hospitality experiences second right so

26:10you're not there for the hotel room and then a spa treatment you're there for the well-being

26:15experience and i'm seeing the line kind of blurring between the two a lot and six senses vana is a good

26:21example of that so it was actually the kind of passion project of an owner who spent many years

26:27creating a wellness experience that was not just ayurveda but it was rooted in like global well-being

26:33practices uh chinese medicine etc and so he was running it for a couple of years and then he partnered

26:39with six senses which it's kind of globally synonymous with like luxury and well-being and kind of

26:44deeper dives into well-being if you're going to a resort but not in the way where you have to

26:50sacrifice everything so you can still have a glass of wine with your detox talks experience you can

26:56kind of dial it up and dial it back so six senses and and vana partnered up and now six senses is

27:02managing the property and bringing a little bit more of its six senses ethos to it while also maintaining

27:08all of the amazing principles that the the original owner or the owner the current owner created so it

27:13kind of encourages someone who's like a little bit more inquisitive about what it means to have a

27:19well-being experience i mean there are a couple of things that are a little bit more kind of

27:23destination spa than hotels so for example cell phones are banned in public spaces everyone wears

27:29white pajamas that the property provides so there's yeah there's definitely that feeling you know you're there

27:35with intention for sure but it's also got that six senses ethos where you're also there to enjoy the

27:41region in the scenic foothills of the himalayas so i think that's brilliant and we're going to see more of

27:46that wow i love that you could also choose to have a glass of wine you know should you need that

27:52in front of your detox exactly um well i wanted to zoom back out a little bit first what do you look

28:00for in a new hotel so whenever i'm looking at a new hotel i'm looking at that game-changing angle

28:07in the place where it is so that can vary from place to place so what is that new hotel bringing that

28:13isn't already there and also the guest experience you know ultimately the idea is for the hotel to

28:19unlock a destination for a traveler so what are they doing for the traveler that will help the

28:25traveler see that destination in a new way so it could be an experience on site it could be something

28:31outside of the hotel it could just be having a really good concierge who can say go here and not

28:37here and if you're looking for this this is where you should go and you know even service right like

28:42if you think about time as an asset and something we value in our travels a concierge can be the

28:48person who can unlock time for you they can fix an issue at the hotel they can help you with an

28:54airplane ticket that you need to change and you can save the time to spend in the destination and

28:59these days there are hotels i'm thinking of a hotel in paris right now that actually have

29:03local art curators and people who are experts in their destinations so that they can benefit the

29:08traveler while they're staying there that's so i never would have thought about asking if a

29:13concierge could help with a travel hiccup like a flight that needs to be changed or something i

29:18mean there's that and there's also just you know where is that hotel like is it in a place that that

29:23you couldn't otherwise visit if there wasn't a hotel i mean one special one on our list is

29:28southern ocean lodge that was actually a victim of the wildfires in australia a few years ago and

29:34they've just reopened after a painstaking renovation with more sustainability and more

29:40just kind of incredible ways for people to experience their landscapes but like it is one

29:45of the only places of that kind of level to to stay on kangaroo island in australia and it's a

29:51really special place with i mean wild kangaroos and like all the i mean it sounds so incredible

29:56that is one of the ones i cannot wait to get to actually well that kind of leads nicely into you

30:02you talk about how hotels are destinations unto themselves sometimes and i was just curious to

30:08know why that is true why you think that's true for you well if you just imagine a hotel in london

30:15where like winston churchill made his wartime decisions or a hotel in venice where everything

30:21you touch from the fabrics to the floors tells you a story of a local kind of historic atelier

30:27i think sometimes we think that hotels are for outsiders but the best hotels are actually the

30:31ultimate insiders they often help tell stories of the people and places where they're located so

30:37when you're sleeping in the violino d'oro in venice you're surrounded by the work of local artisans

30:44when you're staying at the riad rosemary and marrakesh you are you are immersed in that beautiful

30:50riad culture uh in the middle of the medina so i definitely think that when you check into a hotel

30:55it can actually be the destination so i guess my question is like you must be on the road all the

31:03time because how can you not want to check out every single one of these it must be so challenging

31:09to actually stay at home on orcas oh yeah it is very yeah i am on the road a lot and it's definitely

31:16one of those challenges of balance but i mean luckily we can work from anywhere and my favorite thing to do

31:22is to sometimes just check into a hotel and experience all the hospitality there like so

31:26many of us spend a couple of hours to work uh from hotel w f h yes i'm gonna work from hotel more

31:36well i think we all should we all should yeah looking ahead what can we expect in 2024 in terms

31:43of hotel openings you mentioned a couple are there any that you're like really excited about

31:48at this time oh my goodness well i just came out with an article with my springtime picks although

31:53that list was so long that i had to whittle it down to 10 and it was very difficult um a few of

31:58the highlights i mean there's a really cool mandarin oriental coming out in mayfair in london which i'm

32:05really excited for it's a more intimate kind of small hotel which i love and then also in london

32:11there's the emery hotel which comes from the mayborn group which is one of london's most exciting i mean

32:17they have clarages they have the barclay they have the connaught i mean their hotel collection

32:22in london is already really respected and historic and admired and everything and i cannot wait to see

32:27the emery it's supposed to be attached through like a sky bridge to the barclay hotel which a lot of

32:33people know if they know london and i mean this is it's going to be really special it's going to be

32:38very much for the person who doesn't want to be seen who wants to be more kind of like off the beaten

32:43path it's like it's going to be incredible i'm really excited about those there's also a seneva

32:48secret opening up in the maldives so seneva was created by a really visionary guy named sonu shiv

32:55dasani and he's all about well-being and sustainability he has hotels in the maldives already and this hotel

33:01is meant to be a little bit farther off the beaten path family friendly but just a little bit kind of

33:06farther off if you want to get out kind of really immerse yourself in nature sounds like 2025 will

33:12be just as challenging in terms of whittling down this list and trying to pick the best new hotels

33:17acelyn i think about hotels every single day and i i promise you that this list i think about all the

33:24hotel stories that i'm not telling and i lose sleep over it so yes it's definitely a labor of love

33:30and one that uh we dedicate a lot of time and obsession to for sure we're a bunch of hotel

33:35obsessives here at afar well thank you for sharing your passion and your obsessions with us i really

33:41appreciate it thanks nason it's always a pleasure to talk to you you too okay that was our show don't

33:49forget to hit like and subscribe on your way out and i'll include a link to the podcast below

34:00so

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Unpacked: S3, E12: Behind the Scenes, How We Create Our Best New Hotels List

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Unpacked by AFAR (podcast)

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