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| Jennifer Hawkins |
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the hospitality landscape, we’re seeing a divergence between mid-market utility and luxury positioning. It is a reality that was echoed repeatedly at the recent NYU International Hospitality Investment Forum: While mid-level hotels use AI primarily for cost efficiency, scale, and operational volume, luxury hotels deploy AI as an invisible tool to protect and elevate the human touch. That focus on “the human touch” hits the bullseye—and it’s a strategy that’s relevant across all segments of the industry. As global wealth expands, affluent travelers are looking past fleeting, surface-level hospitality trends. Instead, they are seeking deeper cultural immersion, highly personalized service, and genuine exclusivity.
For hoteliers and the luxury travel advisors who guide these clients, the directive is clear: breathe authentic, sustained life into these core pillars rather than chasing momentary gimmicks. The exact same mandate applies to luxury travel public relations strategies. The messaging we shape for our hotel clients must look beyond internal corporate checklists and focus squarely on what actually moves the needle for the media.
Over my decades-long career in travel PR, the standard line when pitching new business has always been that our agency "works best as an extension of your marketing department." In practice, however, the reverse is true: Marketing departments work best for us when they act as a conduit to the property’s actual creators – the designers, chefs, event planners, and concierges. These are the individuals who not only breathe life into daily operations but inherently shape the defining characteristics of the property.
| This article is featured in O'Dwyer's Jul./Aug. '26 Travel & Tourism PR Magazine |
This philosophy of looking past the C-suite to uncover the true architects of a brand's identity is gaining traction across all industries. A prime example is the Los Angeles Business Journal’s recent launch of The Indispensables – a new editorial spinoff of their LA500 that recognizes the essential leaders who don't hold chief executive titles but are absolutely critical to their organization's success. It is a brilliant concept, and one that resonates deeply with our mission in public relations. To find the “authentic” stories that truly captivate an audience, we have to look deeper, moving past the figureheads to elevate the “real” people who actively build and sustain the brand.
While financial forecasting and real estate trends aren't on my casual weekend reading list, I found myself fascinated by the development conversations at the NYU conference, and it prompted me to dig into the actual data surrounding the balance between brand-new builds and adaptive re-use projects. The global development pipeline is experiencing historic momentum. According to Lodging Econometrics, there were nearly 16,000 construction projects in the global pipeline in the final quarter of 2025. Among those were roughly 2,800 conversions – the reimagining of existing structures into hotel properties.
Rather than just being "splashy and new," these conversion properties lean toward the intriguing, finding success when their distinct, built-in attributes are revitalized and allowed to capture the traveler's imagination. These usually make for a robust pitch to our editors who love stories about renovations and relaunches.
A recent example from our agency’s portfolio underscores this. We represent a grand historic hotel in a major European city center that recently underwent a massive renovation and rebranding. While the property's internal marketing team understandably wanted us to trumpet the debut of a new restaurant, our account team was drawn instead to the meticulous preservation of the historic architecture surrounding the dining space. We knew that there were distinctive U.S.-based luxury media that would be far more compelled by the heritage than the menu. Of course, our strategy still focused on the chef, the culinary craft, and the tier-one accolades like the World’s 50 Best that accompany fine dining. But for the initial debut, we wanted to feature the stunning, historic architectural heritage first, which was an asset that had been painstakingly and lovingly restored by the new owners.
As our VP team lead noted: “A high-end restaurant is a baseline expectation for a luxury hotel. Historic architecture of this caliber is not. We had to convince the marketing department that the property's design and restoration narrative was the real story, and then draw out the behind-the-scenes human elements to build a pitch that would truly resonate across the Atlantic.”
While not every property is a historic conversion, almost all luxury developments have these deeper narratives embedded in their blueprints. This is particularly critical when engaging local and regional media, where a hotel’s relationship with its community is paramount. The narrative capital is rich: local owners transforming eyesores into architectural anchors, regional artisans driving the design, curated programming reflecting local wellness traditions, and native landscaping shaped to fit the destination.
To unlock these stories, however, travel PR pros must understand the journalists on the receiving end of those pitches. I was reminded of this during a recent press visit to a high-end ski resort in the Rocky Mountains. Dining with a prominent food editor from a men’s magazine, I watched his immediate frustration when he noticed the lamb on the menu was imported from New Zealand. “Why would the chef do that here?” he asked. “Not only is it not local, but this state produces some of the finest lamb in the world.” (Meanwhile, my locally sourced trout was excellent.) It was a sharp reminder that how we package those stories and precisely whom we pitch them to is just as critical. The real reward for us and our clients comes when we deeply understand a journalist's specific editorial lens, allowing us to successfully spotlight the exact details that make a property extraordinary.
Ultimately, this premium sector shows no signs of slowing down. In an era of rapid expansion, digital noise, and automated algorithms, our role as PR practitioners isn't to manufacture fleeting trends or rely on data-driven customization shortcuts. It is to dig beneath the surface and uncover the true heart of a brand. Our job is to find "the indispensables" – whether that is a visionary artisan behind the scenes or a thoughtfully designed architectural detail – and give them the spotlight. When we champion the authentic, human elements that truly build and sustain a property, we don't have to force a narrative; we simply let the soul of the experience speak for itself.
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Jennifer Hawkins is Managing Partner at FINN Partners.
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