Skift Take
Viceroy, a collection of hotels and resorts, has rebranded. It now promises to curate luxury experiences that will be consistently top-tier and locally immersive, from Portuguese beekeeping to glassblowing in Los Cabos.
Mark Keiser has a problem with luxury hotels: He thinks too many look and feel the same.
"You go into a walled-off resort, and they serve Mexican food in a country that's not Mexico, and everyone calls that luxury," said Keiser, president of development at Viceroy Hotels & Resorts.
Keiser said "experiential luxury" is central to Viceroy's rebranding, which debuted on Wednesday.
"Today's luxury needs to instead be about the destination — coming back from an experience and saying, 'These are the amazing locally immersive things that I did.'"
Viceroy, a brand with 10 hotels, vets experiences before it recommends them — a practice Keiser said is unusual among luxury hotel brands.
"Other luxury resorts may hand you off to outside groups, but the quality control can be poor," Keiser said. "It can be a bit of a headscratcher of why they handed you off to, say