It’s been widely reported in the Financial Times (January 4, 2025 by Eric Sugiura) and across other sources that London will face an oversupply of luxury hotel rooms with over 750 new rooms available in 2025 and more over the next several years and that a reckoning, or correction, is likely to happen. Contributing to this situation is the tension in geo-politics and fluctuations of major currencies, including the US dollar, that provides for a travel outlook for luxury hoteliers that becomes murky at best.

While many affluent travelers are thriving financially even in the midst of uncertainty, the plethora of choices is daunting and the ability to distinguish from one 5-star hotel to another is becoming harder and harder to do.

In addition to the reported facts on oversupply, the financial pressures for growth continue for all major brands. Pulling back simply isn’t an option.

And while the conversation has been around hotels, it’s very much an issue that includes luxury retail brands as well.

Many luxury brands, in the pursuit of mass adoption, feel and seem the same to the affluent consumer. Sure, there are standouts, but those standouts are the exception.

Kenneth Hatton, head of hotels in Europe at CBRE, in that FT article said, ‘Those luxury hotels that will stand the test of time will hold their room rate, they will accept a little lower occupancy.’

What exactly does that mean to a luxury brand? What are the actions and implications of “standing the test of time”?

Be Different, Not Better


‘How can we be better than our competition?’

That’s a question that is often heard in boardrooms and in strategy sessions, however that’s exactly the wrong question to ask. Being better is not a sustainable business advantage that will enable a brand to stand the test of time as Mr. Hatton stated. A luxury brand that thrives in uncertain times, across decades, and with an ever-evolving consumer and media landscape must aim to be different from its competition.

This concept is called declustering, and it’s the process to find an ownable part of the market where a brand can win again and again because your competition cannot profitably compete in that space.

Being different, and not better, is about identifying the unique value the brand provides to the marketplace, to the consumer.

Unique means only your brand. Value is something your consumers desire greatly. Together they move the brand away from the competition into its own space. The brand has become declustered, and different, from all other competitors, in the mind of the consumer in a very valuable way.

This concept of declustering can be achieved in several ways for a luxury brand and the following are just a few genuine approaches that we’ve seen appeal to the affluent consumer.

Guardians of Culture



Today’s affluent travellers are often referred to as ‘Culture Collectors’ traveling the globe to broaden perspectives and crafting a mosaic of global insight that shapes how that affluent traveller lives. This type of travel enables culture to become both a memory and part of their identity which creates travel experiences that have a sustained life.

These affluent travelers become curators of meaning and they seek out destinations and brands that add context and new inputs into that curation.

One such strategy that luxury hotel and retail brands can employ is to be a culture guardian. Culture guardians resist the notion to appeal to everyone, instead each proudly reflects a particular element of culture throughout the totality of the brand experience.

It may be a brand that embraces an interpretation of English design through the room, f&b, programs, and service experience. Or it may be an Asian-based brand bringing a modern expression of Asian hospitality to the center of London. Or it may be a large global brand that mandates that each hotel adopt the personality of the local culture while maintaining the service standards they are known far and wide for.

The test is that that hotel or retail brand would only work in that specific location - those that pass that test are one type of guardians of culture.

Be Known

Much has been written about great hospitality with topics such as anticipatory service, guest-centric thinking, and a wonderful book by Will Guidara on Unreasonable Hospitality. However, there is another level of hospitality that speaks specifically to the affluent consumer who is a culture collector and that’s for the people of the brand, the front-line, to be known to the hotel or retail guest.

To be known means hospitality that has a real, engaged presence between the people of the brand and the guest. It’s hospitality that leads with the heart, the desire to know someone and to share what that person loves about the place or the brand that the guest is choosing to align with. It’s a perspective on hospitality that requires additional effort on behalf of the brand because not only do they need to know the guests, but they also have to open themselves up to be known by the guests.

This approach transforms hospitality into the people of the brand becoming cultural interpreters without sacrificing the desire to deliver the highest levels of service.

Hospitality as a cultural interpreter provides for a deeper engagement and enables the brand to not only customize the experience for the guest, it allows the guest to have a genuine conversation of discovery that’s not scripted or programmed. It’s a level of hospitality that few are even able to provide but those that can become known and beloved by those guests.

Say No

It’s believed by many that the customer is always right, but that is in fact wrong.

Affluent consumers want authentic experiences, but an authentic experience may not be what they expected or even liked. A luxury brand that can reflect a discipline and genuine perspective is one that will be believed when the luxury brand stands for something. When a luxury brand refuses to compromise. When a luxury brand speaks with authority.

That may mean that some affluent consumers choose another brand, but it most certainly means that other affluent consumers will choose the brand that says no to anything that isn’t aligned with the experience the brand is focused on delivering and that the consumer is expecting to receive.

That commitment earns loyalty and respect and can result in a resiliency and price insensitivity for the brand over time.

Finding the Brand’s Unique Value

Being valuably different, and not focused on being better, is the key to being a brand that stands the test of time.

The references to brands who are guardians of culture, have a heart of hospitality to be known and who are willing to say no to anything that isn’t aligned to what the brand is committed to delivering are simply examples of how some have declustered from the competition.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of strategies that a luxury brand can embrace to separate and be different from competitors, but the key is that strategy must be unique to that brand and it has to deliver a value that affluent consumers deem important and can’t find elsewhere.

For two decades, FerebeeLane has been leading luxury brands and destinations through an Experience Design (GXd) process that frames out an orchestrated, cross-functional effort to fully activate a brand’s unique value throughout the consumer journey. These narrative, multi-sensory touch points not only dimensionalize a brand, but they also enrich and deepen the affluent consumer’s experience — they bring a luxurious brand to life in an unforgettably human and meaningful way. This process helps luxury brands leave the sea of sameness that is so prevalent in today’s crowded marketplace.