The hospitality industry has, since the pandemic, been operating on a five-year compression of trends that had previously taken a decade. What follows is a short, unsentimental note on the five movements I think will define the upper end of the market between now and 2028 — written, this morning, after a week of conversations with operators, principals and a few of the journalists who cover this beat seriously.
1. The membership model has eaten the restaurant model.
The opening of Seia on the 54th floor of 830 Brickell in March, with a private members floor stacked directly above the public dining room, is the architectural form of a shift that has been building for five years. Restaurants no longer sell dinner; the most ambitious of them sell belonging. Dorsia, Casa Tua, the new Soho House at Mercer Street, the members floor at the Maybourne — they are all variants of the same idea. Watch for two more openings of this kind in Paris by 2027.
2. Branded residences are eating the second home.
Aman, Four Seasons, Bulgari, Rosewood, Mandarin Oriental. The wealthy buyer who used to keep a villa in the Alpilles is now signing a residence contract at the Aman Tokyo. The model exports the operational excellence of a hospitality brand into the private ownership question, and removes the only real friction of the second home — the staff. The implication for the South of France is that the next five years of luxury real estate development will be branded, not independent. The villa rental market will contract by 2028.
3. The wellness pivot has matured.
For ten years, "wellness" in hospitality meant a marble spa with a stethoscope. It now means real medicine. Lily of the Valley at La Croix-Valmer, Clinique La Prairie at Montreux, the SHA Wellness Clinic in Spain — all running serious medical teams, all charging accordingly, all attracting the same UHNW client who five years ago would have spent August on the boat. The medicalised retreat is, for a meaningful slice of the market, replacing the beach as the primary summer destination.
4. Sport at the top has gone private and gone serious.
The clients I work with most actively in 2026 are no longer asking for the restaurant. They are asking for the court, the practice green, the chukkers. Tennis at Monte-Carlo, padel everywhere, polo in Sotogrande and Ibiza, golf at Pevero or Mont Agel. The conversion of the European summer from a hospitality calendar to a sporting calendar is one of the most under-reported structural shifts of the decade — and the properties that have understood it (Le Bristol, Cala di Volpe, the Pitrizza, Lily of the Valley) are now operating at a level the strictly-hotel competitors cannot reach.
5. The good hotel is the hotel with one host, not one hundred.
The single most important hire any luxury property is making in 2026 is not the chef. It is the private client director. The shift from product-led to relationship-led service is now structural at the top of the market, and the operators who refuse to invest in it — who continue to staff their lobbies and understaff their relationship desks — will lose the next decade of business to the ones who have. The Maybourne knows this. The smaller Mayfair town-house hotels know this. The Riviera will be the test laboratory of the next two seasons.
— Camille Vedy
This piece is a short version of remarks Camille is preparing for a panel on the future of luxury hospitality in the autumn. For press enquiries: beesy.world@gmail.com.