I'm with you. He's definitely not succeeded in transplanting horizontal Aman DNA to vertical city properties. I think the patient was DOA in Tokyo. NYC and HK will be even tougher cookies for Aman culture and service. I don't know where he puts it in Hong Kong.

HK has the highest concentration of 5* hotels in the world. Vlad's version of big city Aman has no chance of competing for my business. None. The best hotel in, say, Singapore doesn't make the top 10 (50?) in HK. Aman HK would just be another decent, yet expensive hotel in HK. He's going to have this problem in NYC. He won't knock out the Mark and the other 15 good hotels. Aman Tokyo, if transplanted to HK, might make the top 15. Maybe not ... on second thought ... for discussion. ASP, the other big city Aman, embarrassingly anchors the Aman chain in a bad way. Not as bad as FS Sydney for Four Seasons, but in the running.
UH is hard to beat. I just wish the food improved.
Agree.

I have long come to accept (and love) the fact that some of the best Amans are indeed not Amans these days. We will likely not see Aman BKK in the near or distant future, though I think we can all agree that The Siam is the most wonderful city Aman anyone could think of. Service is beyond expectations, as is room count and the certain familiarity and love that flows through the property. Same in HK, where in my opinion The Upper House is where most here on this forum feel at home and undoubtedly better cared for than, for example, at Aman Tokyo. Aman Tokyo is wildly successful and almost always close to capacity due to social media, press/social media coverage and company/contracted rates, but I cannot get over the fact that there is a certain arrogance surrounding the hotel, which is very unfortunate. The machine-written welcome cards are just the first indication, but closely followed by interactions with team and management. They don't care and if you don't like it there is already another guest waiting patiently in the lobby beyond check-in time to experience that 'amazing' hard product in the sky. It would be entirely uncharacteristic for Nick at The Siam or Marcel at TUH to let anyone leave without having made an impression through the team or extending a certain level of care and consideration. Because it is personal to them, sadly it's not personal to anyone at Aman Tokyo. GMs come and go, occupancy is still great (so are the returns) and locals drive F&B revenue. It can be very subtle but this element of caring about the guest is totally missing with these city Amans. I cannot imagine it will be any better in New York, London or Singapore, if anything it will be worse. So I think my decision to follow the people who have Aman DNA and bring that to their respective properties is not too bad, it is about people after all. And we still have many of the golden days around, though less and less by the day it seems. Some don't know that VD is also one of the original '88 Amanjunkies and knows the resorts inside out, though I wonder how this translates into these future and current offerings. Many improvements for the better surely, though some of the pitfalls back then were more generously dealt with as it was about the guest after all, these days select guests are treated to Aman-"style" service levels in Tokyo, though the answer is a dedicated manager dealing with VIPs, moguls, "Instagrammers", celebrities and most importantly fashion designers... much like the big chains trying to deal with non-existent service levels in difficult markets with low yields.

Interestingly, I fondly remember when many years ago an Aman had failed me and I carefully mentioned this post check out. Within a few hours (!), the Grays, Olivia and Monty had all emailed me regarding my future reservations with them, asking me what happened and offered to make up for the disappointment in such a generous manner, I was at a loss of words. Various extravagant amenities were waiting in each of the respective resorts after that and we were speaking for ages about our "Aman Adventures". I couldn't imagine this happening today, I am almost certain it would be impossible in this climate. For those having their first Aman stays these days, I don't think it is imaginable how different it was.

aman tokyo and summer palace both have some amazing service reports here.
(as with everywhere else, and like with independent properties, depends on GM)
(same with sold out amans, many perfect reports) (same at hualalai 'long ago')

aman scale limits number of willing & interested owners in cities, especially biggest.
unless best GM is moved to aman city, city location irrelevant to operations.
and if aman veterans want to spend some time in city, better to keep them.
some amanjunkies here like tokyo and beijing even without service
(summer palace after hours, away from city center ; tokyo corner suite)

HK upper house - no pool
NY mark ; lowell - no pool
(only matters to pool fans)
mark was affiliated (marketing) with aman when it was a rafael hotel

re NYC, jean michel gathy did >
aman tribeca concept dated jun 23 2009
57 rooms including 2 duplex, hotel pool

tokyo and nemu also signed long ago

presumably when FS sydney was regent (and well regarded) it was not making much if any profit, although frankly i wonder how much of an impact changing labor laws were (vs then)

until aman opens much larger hotels (cant ignore how many bedrooms puri has, even if live-in staff) they will remain the only brand with ~30+ properties of that scale. personally, that unique aspect makes it the only brand of interest to me, but my narrowing travel interests make it likely i will not visit many. if only i had known about aman in mid 90s. i do look forward to giri.

literally only reason i did necker island at $4k/night was that it has fewer rooms than aman combined with very low occupancy during dates they loaded to inventory at last minute.

many here have spent similar even if for different things, and many do not care re costs

it is possible for city properties to have very few rooms, guests-only with pool etc. so far no one has tried doing such a property with extremely few rooms. residences could have separate facilities. at one point lebua brand owner mentioned considering it, prior to financial crisis. richard branson i am guessing was considering soho house competitor before downgrading virgin hotels also after financial crisis (virgin hotels not like virgin limited edition)

from article
maybe he will invest in amans in tibet !
few rooms/condos would work in miami as such hotels in miami are larger

until aman goes full dynamic rates, peak dates in places like tokyo and venice are less expensive at aman vs other hotels with full dynamic rates, without even comparing room size

i interpret overrated as not as good as best aman GMs, but 99% of the time i disagree with how people characterize rating / overrating based on what is said (as can be 'interpreted')

thankfully some of external hire GMs have done well, unfortunately some already gone

also re cities - massive entry rooms and or bathrooms are liked by a large number of regulars here, and some cities can be difficult in terms of size of entry rooms even at all the top hotels in the city

btw has anyone ever heard of architects like gathy getting paid in equity?

It doesn't take much to care for a guest but Aman Tokyo doesn't seem to be interested in trying. I suppose guests do come back for the hardware alone. We're not influencers, famous or celebrities so maybe those people see a side of Aman Tokyo that "commoners" never can. It is puzzling that they treat repeat Amanjunkies with very little enthusiasm or fanfare.

Doronin is one of the original Amanjunkies but he's lost sight of what made the resorts or brand. He must drink his own PR kool-aid if he really thinks the DNA has been transplanted or maybe his properties treat him like it's 1988. It really has become a billionaire's playtoy.

Aman Seoul would be just another VERY expensive city hotel. I'm sure he dreams of emulating what goes on in Tokyo and it could very well work too. Rooms get filled by well-to-do staycationing Koreans, influencers, celebrities, etc and ladies of all ages buy his tea sets.

I can understand -- but to be fair, this is not particular to Sean and in my experience Sean is one of the GMs who sensed very quickly if a guest wants to be left alone or needs more attention.

youtube.com/watch?v=ILoVeqhGxbw
2012 flakelar interview

Siddharth Mehra now at La Verda Dubai
($200 suite > $840 villa or penthouse)

Especially since this is not a holiday weekend in the states

Is this fake news about VD being one of the original Amanjunkies? I say this because many ex-Amanresorts GMs had never heard of him, let alone met him, before he took over the company. I gather he was fond of Amanpuri, but he certainly had not visited many of the other Amanresorts, such as Amanpulo, which he finally visited quite a long time after acquiring Aman.

Maybe we should not believe everything we read...