deer

In an interview with Hotelsmag.com (http://www.hotelsmag.com/Industry/News/Details/74924 - subscription needed, but it's free of charge), new Aman COO Fasel is making clear, that they are leaning toward building vertical hotels in cities rather than the sprawling properties in resort locations that have characterized the brand in the past.

Now they are primarily seeking a presence in urban outposts such as New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Sao Paolo, apart from their resort destinations.

The opening of Aman Tokyo in 2014 “set a clear path for the future” - the hotel has high occupancy and is regularly fully booked, he said. But on the other hand, according to Hotelsmag, most hotels if not all in Tokyo are full due to the city’s room shortage.

More interestingly, Aman Tokyo gets more leisure than business travelers, perhaps reflecting the desire of today’s luxury guests for outstanding locations globally.

Fasel: “When it comes to our vertical Amans, what matters most is being able to translate all that Aman is known for — space, privacy, supreme levels of service, design — into an urban environment. We do not specifically target business clientele, but especially with our urban property, ensure that our corporate guests are well looked after.”

According to him they are in talks with partners for management agreements but also prepared to acquire resorts or hotels.

“There is a fine line between guarding a brand’s core values and achieving commercial success. We have been able to find this sweet spot; treading this line carefully so that our core values remain intact."

Hotelsmag reporting the growing Institutionalisation with not just the appointment of Fasel as its first COO, a chief human resources officer (Debbie Cross, formerly with Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts), a head of global sales and distribution (Christina Deeny), and Chief Marketing Officer Jane Mackie to focus on strategies for increasing business, diversifying sales channels and continuing to redefine Aman’s distribution model. “We implemented a new global sales structure — something we never had in place previously,” Fasel said, also that they have improved its online booking engine, optimized UX and SEO, all of which is increasing reservations through their own website.

They also appointed a new group director of spa, Nichola Roche, to drive "Aman Wellness". The new concept aims to deliver individual wellness immersions and group retreat experiences led by specialists in fields such as movement and alignment, yoga, mindfulness and meditation.

Further Fasel is talking about new culinary concepts. First Nama, which is "guided by Chairman Vladislav Doronin and Tokyo-native master chef Keiji Matoba", and now "a Mediterranean dining concept".

chinmoylad

Hard to find a good location in some of those cities. They should just buy out the Upper House in Hong Kong.

deer

Hard, but not impossible: See Tokyo now, see Delhi once, see New York soon...

Upper House is room-, service- and detailwise one of the best five star hotels. But with its high 117 room-count it's lacking the Amanesque intimacy, and - which is for me the biggest problem - it's really missing a proper swimming pool. So sad!

mike_la_jolla

By my count, Aman has two properties in urban locations: Tokyo and Beijing. Neither property works well. It is very questionable whether any of the Aman mystique is present at Tokyo. I sure didn't experience it. I can't convince myself that ASP works at all, let alone as an Aman.

Good luck to them. It will be interesting to see how much mileage they can get out of the brand equity that AZ created as Vlad dilutes it. Count me as a pessimist, but maybe I'm not the target market.

PS -- They're going to find the competition to be stiff in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong. I haven't a clue how they could be better than UH in HK.

Londonjetsetter

I booked the Azerai for late February but then read that Luang Prabang suffers from haze from farmers burning at that time of year. The Azerai tell me it is not until later in March (of course), but I am dubious. Has anyone else been there in late February?

Kagehitokiri

article can also be accessed via search engine cache
"prepared to acquire a resort or hotel, either fully or in a JV"
perhaps new corp owner would acquire sites to develop residences.
as proposed in NY, if they can get permitting to do what they want.
some cities can be villas, like shanghai (online reservations soon?)

debbie cross was FS 2003-2011, christina deeny well regarded here

wellness retreats, guests, custom packages can be interesting offering.
certainly the spa houses are interesting at amanoi, could be expanded.
many did not have a (full/nice) spa, including ruya, could add them

aman beijing/china may have peaked in 2012, from reports here

NYC is not particularly well regarded here is it? lowell? new FS?
what would regulars here pay for 80/40/20/10 rooms in places like NY?
is UH building just UH and JW? could they turn into aman + condos?
skyscrapercenter.com/building/jw-marriott-and-the-upper-house/3100
brickell miami developments include UH owner and aman corp owner

wonder who hired gathy to do this >
aman tribeca concept, dated june 23 2009
57 rooms including 2 duplex, pool, no condo

Shangri-La

Would you consider Venice to be "mildly" urban?

I believe the new owner wants to bring Aman to Miami from what I've read.

I haven't been to either Tokyo or Beijing, but it'll be interesting to see how it plays it. Urban destinations are just difference--whether it's for leisure, or in a lot of cases, business. Even as beautiful as the Tokyo property looks, and even in destinations like Paris that have a big leisure market, I don't know how you bring the Aman resort destination experience and "magic" to urban and more business-minded destinations, even if the hard product is top-notch and the service is great. Can it be done right?

Aventine

The Tokyo service needs to become great first. It's been better under Marc but still nothing like their SE Asian properties.

chinmoylad

That's easy. Drop room count to 40-80 (80 max ala Tokyo). Add a swimming pool and spa, and better food options. But location is the hard part.

Or just take over the Upper House, add a pool/spa and a bigger gym by taking out a whole floor (or two) of rooms. I'm not a structural engineer/architect so not sure how realistic that is.

chinmoylad

Shame they lost the Delhi property.

Agree on the second part too. Upper House would be really elevated with a nice pool/spa/gym. 117 isn't big though.

FlyerEC

+1

Yes , TUH will be a good one

Wonder if worthwhile returning to AmanSP though .
If anything , perhaps to see changes / improvements since Mark S moved to AmanIndo which is awhile ago ( since he has moved on too ) .

erik123

That is impossible to predict as it depends on the weather pattern. I stayed at the Azerai in July and highly recommend it.

cruisr

Yes and it was very hazy in the evening and early morning. It was also quite chilly in the evening and I was told the haze was from the stoves burning in homes for heat.

I have asthma so I had to use my inhaler for a few days. It did not effect my other activities (waterfalls, boat ride, morning procession of the monks).

Shangri-La

Disappointing to hear it still isn't up to par. Does it even compete with the bigger luxury properties in Tokyo?

Londonjetsetter

Thank you. I might move my stay to another time of year.