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The Palace, a Luxury Collection Hotel in Madrid reopened in 2025 after a two-year renovation, which included restoring its famous stained-glass dome.
Bruce Rohr, VP and global brand leader, JW Marriott & The Luxury Collection
traveler preferences, as highend guests are increasingly seeking independent hotels that offer more personalized, unexpected and locally inspired experiences,” he said.“ This competitive context informs our growth strategy in a very intentional way.”
Recent additions to the Preferred portfolio include Bernardus Lodge & Spa in Carmel, Calif., Al Habtoor Palace Budapest, The Cooper
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in Charleston, S. C., and Armani Hotel Milano.
Relais & Châteaux has a similar lengthy history as Preferred, with formal roots stretching back to the 1970s. Relais & Châteaux has always had the distinction of being food first; food forward: Cuisine is core to the association’ s identity. Becoming part of that identity isn’ t easy: Admission to Relais & Châteaux is highly selective, like getting into an elite ivy-league university. Of the approximate 600 applications it receives each year, only around 30 are accepted.
“ Independent hotels often seek affiliation with Relais & Châteaux because we are not simply a brand; we are a movement built around a shared vision for hospitality rooted in local culture, sustainability and culinary excellence,” said its president, Laurent Gardinier.
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Another significant player in the luxury independent affiliation space is The Leading Hotels of the World, which was started back in 1928 to serve leading hotels in Europe, before opening
A guestroom at El Palace Barcelona, which uses services provided by Keytel.
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up membership to hotels across the globe in the early 1970s. Today, it counts more than 400 luxury properties worldwide. Like Relais & Châteaux, membership has its privileges. That is, if you can get in: LHW receives more than 600 inquiries a year and accepts only about 5 % of them, noted Shannon Knapp, the organization’ s president and CEO. The selectivity is deliberate, she went on to say.“ We are not a unit-growth company. Where some brands grow through uniformity and scale, we are focused on bringing the right independent luxury hotels into the collection.”
A key distinction for LHW is that a healthy percentage of its membership is composed of family-owned-and-operated hotels. Villa d’ Este, on Lake Como, in Italy, considered one of the finest hotels in the world,
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18 hotelsmag. com Jan / Feb 2026 |