SPOTLIGHT ON
Carina Svensen
Global Brand Director, Quorvus Collection
By Sharon Hirschowitz
Carina explores how luxury hospitality
has become more experiential and the
modern customer more diverse as she
looks at the new definition of luxury.
She examines today’s consumer and
their constantly evolving search for an
experience that is authentic, meaningful
and unique.
How has luxury changed the last few
years and how has this impacted luxury
hospitality?
There are obviously a number of forces
in motion and some fundamental shifts
in consumer demographics. But, in my
opinion, the single largest change of the
last few years has been the movement
away from Luxury products towards
Luxury experiences.
In both value and demand, the market
for experiences has overtaken Luxury’s
traditional heartland – Personal Luxury
Goods – as well as most big-ticket
categories. What we’ve witnessed has
been a natural evolution in the pursuit
of greater exclusivity. Difficult to
replicate and impossible to counterfeit
– experiences guarantee a unique
10 ILHA
relationship with Luxury brands that
product cannot.
For Luxury Hospitality, this means two
things:
1. Increasing Opportunity
Hotel brands that shape their offer
around the guest experience are
in a unique position to capture
opportunity. Both Travel and
Hospitality (in its broadest sense)
are intimately connected with
personal experiences – and the
industry has been one of Luxury’s
largest beneficiaries in terms of
consumer spend and investment
interest.
2. Intensifying Competition
The other side of the coin is that
Luxury brands are falling under
increasing pressure to innovate and
engage audiences on an experiential
level. Once differentiating offers
– like product personalisation,
anticipatory service, a sense of
theatre or even an immersive
digital platform – are all becoming
industry-wide standards. The
average level of consumer
expectation is being pushed
ever higher and nowhere is the
expectation for Luxury experiences
greater than in Hospitality.
Who is the new Luxury Consumer? Do
we understand them?
Trying to understand the new Luxury
Consumer is an inherently complex
matter. If we take those who buy into
Luxury as a whole, our audience has
never been broader or more diverse –
in age, in culture or in affluence. So
treating “The Luxury Consumer” as
a type – or even as a set of discrete
customer profiles – is something of a
misnomer.
For brands today, it’s perhaps
more useful to try and understand
the common lifestyles, values and
sensibilities which unite an increasingly
diverse customer base – rather than
thinking about traditional segmentation.
In fact, there are a number of significant
consumer traits that are shaping the
way we do business today, and which
would have been considered marginal