By David Keen

THE FUTURE of hospitality is about precision, segmentation and the consumer themselves. We are choosing. Imagine your knowledge ten years ago about how you would have chosen. You would have chosen maybe because of advice or maybe because of points.

The future is way beyond that. If you go to New York you can go to Ace, you can go to Citizen M or you can go to Big Brand. You can choose exactly what appeals to you. To your dreams. To your aspirations. To your desires. Location is part of it, but it’s not as important as it was.

What we believe is that it’s not enough to have a cool boutique one of two off three off hotel. Big brand has to subscribe to change. I had a meeting with one of the head of the biggest brands in hospitality. He said how do we do it? I said you start with one.

I see with Marriott, they are leveraging Autograph, Addition and Moxie, their new brands and leveraging them into the core brand. This is what I think the big brand is going to try to do. I don’t see it happening in Starwood. I don’t see it happening in at the moment with Hilton.

The Kempinskis and the Stiegenbergers, the middle size luxury brands are going to change and they are going to change dramatically.

David Keen is CEO, QUO Global. -As told to Bikramjit Ray.