Trends & Insights
Explore our insights into the trends and topics shaping the future of hospitality.
For the most affluent travelers, luxury has taken a decisive inward turn – towards discretion, reflection, and intimacy. This presents an exciting opportunity for the hospitality industry to innovate in its response to these evolving desires.
For high-net-worth travelers, luxury today is defined less by abundance than by controlled absence: of crowds, of noise, of conventional displays of wealth and status. Affluent travelers increasingly seek experiences that are quiet, reflective, and intimate – slower, highly curated, more meaningful journeys.
The implications for the hospitality industry are profound, and the potential rewards are great. According to a McKinsey study, growth in luxury hospitality is outpacing other segments, powered in part by a sharp rise in high-net-worth individuals with assets exceeding US$30 million. The demand is not simply for quieter lobbies or larger suites – these travelers seek remote, private destinations and tailored experiences available nowhere else. The response requires an architectural, operational, and strategic shift.
As part of Accor’s From Change to Opportunity (FCTO) – a dedicated insights and intelligence platform exploring the trends and transformations shaping the future of hospitality – we deep-dive into this trend and how Accor’s pioneering experiences and brands capture new opportunities in the luxury market.
The Art of Disappearing: Discretion as the Ultimate Status Marker
Post-pandemic, concepts of understated “stealth wealth” and “quiet luxury” marked a move away from the performance of wealth to a more discreet, conscious approach, where luxury is implied rather than flaunted. While flamboyant displays of wealth endure, another significant shift is in play. Skift’s luxury hotel themes for 2026 note that “the fastest-growing segment of luxury travelers now pays a premium for less: less noise, less stimulation, less congestion.”
In a culture where over-saturation is the norm and hyper-connection makes everything accessible and shared, true privilege is the ability to move through the world under a cloak of invisibility. According to trend forecasting agency l’ADN, we are seeing the emergence of a new “secret hospitality” – in a reaction against algorithmic surveillance and constant tracking, disappearing becomes luxury.
Alongside this shift is a move towards quiet, refined experiences that emphasize reflection, intimacy, and disconnection. Findings from a recent luxury trend report by Flywire indicate that 93% of ultra-luxury travelers have taken at least one slow travel trip in the past few years. This suggests the segment is placing a greater value on immersion and self-discovery, readily embracing “JOMO” – the joy of missing out. Martin Raymond, co-founder of research consultancy The Future Laboratory, describes it as “a more quiet, sustained, careful, conscious-based wealth.”
Hospitality’s Opportunity in the New Discretion
This shift translates into a philosophy and design that must hold across every touchpoint of the guest journey. Privacy fails if guest access to a private villa passes through a crowded lobby, or if they have to wait for transport. The promise must deliver from the moment of arrival, with dedicated check-in suites, direct villa access, and dining that does not require social interaction unless it’s desired. Rituals must be highly curated to invite reflection and create meaning. Exceptional service – high-touch while maintaining the highest level of privacy – is a given.
Personal sanctuary and a controlled environment are central to the ultra-luxury resort experience, as exemplified by Raffles Bali's private pool villas. Arrival invisibility, visual shielding, and a dedicated butler service are designed so that guests need never interact with public spaces unless they want to.
The trend is also reflected in the evolution of the “executive lounge” into a more intimate, experiential space that emphasizes retreat and personalization. Fairmont Gold goes further, occupying its own floor of the hotel with a private reception desk and dedicated concierge team whose sole focus is the guests in their care – a hotel within a hotel, designed for discretion.
Accor’s Quiet Luxury: Emblems Collection
Emblems Collection – its first address opened in 2025 – answers this inward turn almost to the letter. Each property is chosen for its character and quiet – places that favor retreat over display and presence over performance. Interiors feel residential, rooted in their setting and shaped by local craft, made for guests who come to stay in a place rather than to be seen in it.
Collection brands rank among the industry's fastest-growing segments, expanding at roughly 25% a year. Accor is a market leader, and Emblems carries that momentum towards 60 addresses worldwide by 2032.
From a Palladian mansion in the countryside near Bath, to a frescoed palazzo a few steps from Siena's Piazza del Campo, to a retreat woven into the Canadian Rockies, these are addresses defined less by what they announce than by what they hold: stillness, soul, and a sense of place that asks nothing of the guest but to arrive.
Emblems was born from owners asking for something more intimate, more residential, more about space and time. Larger rooms. More suites. Cottages and villas. Fewer keys. More privacy. It is a brand meant for aesthetic travelers. Places where you come not just to visit the destination, but to stay for the experience of the place itself. Refinement. Ritual. Silence.
3 questions to Camille Lopeo, Chief Marketing Officer, Sofitel Legend, Sofitel, MGallery and Emblems Collection
How does Emblems Collection translate its ethos of “retreat over display” into the concrete design and guest experience of each property?
This philosophy is woven into the very fabric of our properties. Consider Masseria Furnirussi in the south of Italy in Apulia opening in 2027 – each of its 60 suites boasts a private pool and terrace, completely hidden within Europe's largest fig orchard. The design allows an entire stay to unfold within one's own walled garden, offering unparalleled discretion. Similarly, at La Citadelle Vauban, the 16th-century sea fortress inherently provides privacy. Its original walls, once built as a defensive shield, now create a unique retreat suspended between land and ocean.
When speaking of “the art of disappearing” and a desire for “invisibility”, how does Emblems empower guests to achieve this profound sense of personal sanctuary, distinguishing its approach within the luxury landscape?
We empower guests to achieve this through several distinct approaches. Our Master of the House service is a prime example: it’s our version of discreet, high-touch service designed specifically to protect privacy. Unlike a single dedicated butler, it rests on the continuity of knowledge across a collective team who look after the guest before, during, and after their stay. This deliberately collective, lighter-touch approach ensures seamless service without intrusive personal proximity. Additionally, we create environments like Relais San Clemente, a 14th-century Benedictine convent with nine private villas set in a park of century-old trees. Here, the product itself is silence and sacred stillness, allowing for a profound sense of personal sanctuary and disconnection from the outside world.
In a world seeking experiences beyond overt indulgence, how does Emblems Collection foster reflective and intimate moments, embracing “JOMO” (the joy of missing out) as a core tenet of luxury?
A signature offering that perfectly embodies our brand ethos and “JOMO approach” is Emblems Editions: each property has its own bespoke literary anthology, presented as a quiet, in-room ritual. Emblems offers something more inward and reflective in their properties – a deliberate pause, encouraging guests to disconnect from external demands and reconnect with themselves. Whether immersed in the 500-acre natural sanctuary of Lucknam Park or gazing across the vast skies at Rimrock, each destination creates space for stillness, perspective, and personal renewal and genuine wellbeing.
The Ultimate Disappearing Act: Elevated Branded Living
This philosophy of absolute sanctuary finds its most literal expression in the rapid rise of branded residences, a space championed by Accor’s vast spectrum of brands and supported by the Group’s industry-leading Accor One Living platform. As a 360-degree platform integrating design, operations, and residentially-minded service, it cultivates highly private homeowner communities that serve as the ultimate shield from the outside world.
This refined lifestyle of quiet discretion is already alive in iconic flagships like The OWO Residences by Raffles in London, with its historic setting, and Fairmont Residences Mayakoba, nestled privately amidst lush Mexican lagoons. Accor’s portfolio of residential havens is expanding, with upcoming addresses including the elegant Sofitel Residences Downtown Dubai and the ultra-exclusive Raffles Estera East Cape Resort & Residences in Los Cabos.
Curated Belonging: Micro-Communities and Meaningful Experiences
The desire for secrecy is not anti-social, but purposefully social. Disappearing is not about fleeing from others, but about deciding when, how, and with whom to connect. When privacy is paramount, connection becomes more purposeful. It’s a shift from exclusivity to intimacy and from luxury as distance to luxury as shared meaning, as travel becomes an opportunity to deepen connections and share meaningful experiences with one’s chosen community.
Uniqueness also becomes fundamental to the curation of experience. As meaningful access, rather than ownership, comes to define luxury, highly bespoke itineraries and unique access to experiences, destinations and events are markers of value for high-net-worth travelers.
The opportunity for hospitality players is making guests feel not just welcome but understood; designing experiences that feel precious and personalized; and curating communities that reinforce a sense of belonging.
Creating Belonging as a Competitive Differentiator
Hotels, particularly those in the luxury category, are increasingly finding a role as conveners, welcoming groups of wellness seekers, art patrons, and culinary insiders. Curated micro-communities allow guests to gather around shared interests: art, gastronomy, wellness, and adventure. The property becomes a social filter, enabling meaningful proximity – not a place that keeps the world out, but a place that curates a world of the like-minded.
The Accor Approach: Member Clubs and Immersive Experiences
Belonging is at the heart of Paris Society Membership. Paris Society is part of Ennismore, the fastest-growing lifestyle hospitality company, majority-owned by Accor. The membership program brings together an international community of travelers, aesthetes, and epicureans who share the same vision of the art of living.
Driven by Paris Society's expertise in design, hospitality, and food and beverage, Paris Society Membership connects its members to an international ecosystem where they are recognized and welcomed at every destination. This promise of exclusivity comes to life through a curated program designed exclusively for its members.
Invitation-only experiences, cultural immersions, intimate events, and exceptional brand partnerships open the doors to a world reserved for a privileged few. More than a membership program, Paris Society Membership brings together a community of insiders united by a shared appreciation for excellence, design, gastronomy, and culture, with the confidence that the finest destinations will always welcome them.
Accor’s luxury brands choregraph inspired experiences that are meaningful by design, built as occasions for purposeful togetherness.
Fairmont’s “Special Happens...” series curates truly remarkable experiential moments including a glacial mixology cocktail party at high altitude; botanical foraging and private chef-prepared dinner in the Canadian Rockies; a personalized tour of the founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival’s private home; an evening under the Solar Eclipse with live jazz, cocktails and astronomy in Tangier; and stargazing, whisky tasting, and dining in a secluded observation dome in St Andrews, Scotland. These are experiences built around privacy and place, impossible to replicate or stumble upon, entirely removed from the world, created to “Make Special Happen” for guests.
Raffles filters the same principle through the brand's most defining emblem. The Raffles Butler becomes the master curator of unique experiences that feel privately orchestrated by a trusted confidant, from afternoon tea with a Cambodian princess to a private Arc de Triomphe visit designed for an exceptional wedding proposal.
In times when people need to make a choice between a luxury bag or a luxury stay, most will choose to live a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Luxury as Escapism: Away From It All and The New Grand Tour
Access to comfortable climates and uncrowded destinations is the new travel status marker. Sidestepping overtourism has hoisted remote (and expensive-to-reach) places to the top of luxury “on the rise” lists, like Greenland and Iceland, moving away from the past logic of “be where everyone wants to be”.
Alongside the growing desire to avoid increasingly extreme temperatures, this trend drives interest in off-peak travel – 86% of wealthy travelers say they prefer off-season travel to avoid crowds and overly hot weather – especially in highly touristed destinations like Italy and France. Luxury travel network Virtuoso notes a strong rise in “coolcations” to northern Europe and Canada, with European winter trips promoted as “the cultural season.”
More than ever, destination orchestration is a key differentiator. Well-known destinations must be reimagined through the new prism of luxury to create immersive, high-value, low-volume experiences that set the scene for reflection and connection.
Capturing Opportunities in Destination and Timing
The industry response is a shift in direction, both geographically and commercially. Shoulder seasons can become premium “quiet windows,” packaged around climate comfort and private cultural access. In development strategy, a focus on low-density resorts, privately located branded residences, and rail and yacht extensions can drive high-margin growth when paired with reliable access and exceptional service infrastructure.
Banyan Tree Ringha, set in the Himalayan hideaway of Shangri-La, is a model of low-density remote luxury. Just 32 villas – each a reassembled traditional Tibetan farmhouse – make up a resort designed around stillness and deliberate distance from the world. There are no crowds to avoid here – the destination itself does the filtering. A fabled remote location made accessible and effortless with operational mastery, and an elevated experience rooted entirely in place: a development logic in tune to the inward luxury trend.
Orient Express: The Journey as the Experience
When the journey itself – rather than the destination – becomes the point, a new world of luxury experiences can emerge. This is the shift embodied by Orient Express, Accor’s reinvention of the legendary travel brand. Across hotels, trains, and the world's largest sailing yacht, Orient Express designs travel journeys that make long-established and beloved destinations feel new and undiscovered, combined with the pure sensorial pleasure of an encounter with opulent Art Deco design, reimagined.
Embarking on its maiden voyage in 2026, the Orient Express Corinthian embodies the golden age of travel through a contemporary lens. Privileging private space and intimacy with just 54 cabins across its vast 220 meters, embracing unhurried time with state-of-the-art sail-powered propulsion, and showcasing fine French craftsmanship with bespoke interiors drawing on the golden age of travel, this is a vessel designed for sensory immersion.
The brand’s Grand Italian Tours combine Orient Express hotels, train, and sailing yacht in a multi-day immersion into both destination and brand – a seamless orchestration of assets and storytelling that reimagines Italy as a private world and creates an entirely new category of luxury experience.
There is a clear shift toward fully integrated journeys – experiences that combine travel, culture, heritage and design into something far more meaningful than traditional luxury tourism. Orient Express is a complete experience – a guest can start at La Minerva in Rome, take the Dolce Vita train to Venice, stay at Palazzo Donà Giovannelli and then board the Orient Express Corinthian for the south of France.
The codes of luxury are being rewritten, and the hospitality players that can genuinely deliver – architecturally, operationally, and experientially – stand to win the trust of today’s highly selective travelers.
Designing Inward Luxury for Luxury Guests
Inward luxury demands a fundamental rethink of how properties are designed, programmed, and positioned. Here are some strategies to convert the trend into competitive advantage.
OPERATIONALIZE DEDICATED PRIVACY INFRASTRUCTURE
DESIGN INTIMATE DINING PRODUCTS
CURATE AFFINITY-BASED “MICRO-COMMUNITIES”
PROGRAM MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCES
CONVERT UNDERUSED SPACES INTO SEMI-PRIVATE SALONS
REFRAME SHOULDER SEASON AS A PREMIUM PRODUCT
CREATE CROWD-AVOIDANCE ITINERARIES
BUILD LOW-DENSITY PRODUCT ARCHITECTURE
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