Amar Lalvani talks lifestyle truths

NATIONAL REPORT – Amar Lalvani sees too many self-identified lifestyle and boutique hotel brands that are not clearly defined and unable to execute on lofty promises at the property level.

The executive vice president, president and creative director of Lifestyle hotels at Hyatt Hotels Corp. since they acquired his Standard International hotel company in 2024, Lalvani told Hotel Investment Today it takes a lot of nurturing from everyone involved for guests to truly identify with a brand’s ethos.

Among the way you do that, he said, is by having a tight brand definition that is succinctly communicated and truthful.

In this latest On The Money interview, Lalvani talks about how to succeed in the increasingly crowded lifestyle space, how he is adjusting to life at a big public company, and what’s coming next in the space.

Complete video transcript

Jeff Weinstein: Hi, I'm Jeff Weinstein, editor in chief of Hotel Investment Today, and this is On The Money.

My guest today is Amar Lalvani, executive vice president, president and creative director of Lifestyle Hotels for Hyatt Hotels Corp. Amar joined Hyatt last year following its acquisition of Standard International, and now leads the lifestyle group headquartered in New York City.

He manages the business across key functions, including experience creation, design, marketing, programming, public relations, restaurants, nightlife, and entertainment.

Lalvani began his career in hospitality over 25 years ago with Starwood Capital Group, where he served on the acquisition team, as well as becoming the first assistant to Chairman Barry Sternlich. He later led the global development efforts for W Hotels.

In 2010, Lalvani collaborated with Andre Balaz on notable projects, including the Chiltern Firehouse in London, the Standard East Village in New York City.

In 2013, he led the group of investors in the acquisition of Standard Brand from Balaz, forming Standard International.

In 2015, he also led the acquisition of a majority stake in the Bunkhouse Group.

More recently, from 2021 to 2024, he served as executive chairman of Standard International, focused on creative initiatives, including the development and launch of the StandardX brand and the Manner brand, as well as leading the sale of the company to Hyatt.

Amar, welcome, and thanks for sharing your time with us today.

Amar Lalvani: Thanks, Jeff. It's a pleasure, it's great to see you.

Weinstein: Yeah, likewise. So, I ran into Catie Kramer about two weeks ago. She's the head of Hyatt luxury and lifestyle development, and she told me that you've been busy pulling apart and redefining Hyatt Lifestyle brands. She used the words distinct, ownable, executable, succinct, and truthful to describe the branding journey. Elaborate on that a little bit, on what you've been doing, and what those keywords mean.

Lalvani: For sure. I think as I look around the industry, and you go to these conferences and watch the news, there's brand after brand after brand being launched.

And to me, there's a difference between a name and a brand. And what it means to build a brand, to own a brand, to nurture a brand, to love a brand, takes a lot, and that's a big deal. And that's how I grew up. In the early days of W, we launched something very, very special, something different, something unique in the industry.

When I joined Andre, I found much the same, but a real soul to what he created and the Standard that I was able to take on and respect and nurture. I found the same thing when it came to Bunkhouse and what Liz Lambert created, and I was… had the honor to take that on as well. And what I found with those brands is that the people behind them, the founders and everybody within the organization marched to the beat of one drum.

And lived and breathed the soul of those brands to bring them to life for the benefit of our guests and to our owners.

And as I look at the industry landscape, that's different than what I see with a lot of the big companies. And, so what I'm bringing to Hyatt, I believe, is that passion, that energy, that creativity to create not just a name, but to create a brand, and the experiences that come along with it. So, as Mark asked me to join both to continue the growth of Standard and Bunkhouse, and to make sure that those stay in good stead, but to take a look at the entire lifestyle portfolio.

And it's a blessing to have these really amazing brands, things like JdV, Joie de Viv, which was started by Chip Conley, another legend in the industry; Thompson Hotels, which was started by Jason Pomeranz; and several Andaz, launched by Nick Pritzker and Steve Goldman with Mark Hoplamazian back in the day. So, to me, to take the DNA of what there is there, to mine them, to go deep and figure out what they actually mean, what they stand for.

And how do they… how do they resonate for the next decades? It's super interesting.

And Catie mentioned those words, which has been kind of a framework that I came up with to say, how do we… how should brands be defined? So, they were distinct. You need to be distinct and different from each other, so that people can tell them apart. When I came to Hyatt, people were… there were questions even internally, what's the difference between Thompson and Andaz? And to me, those differences were clear, but they hadn't been distinctly… they hadn't been made distinct and articulated.

Second, brands need to be able to be communicated in a very succinct fashion. I find too many, too much agency work, too much brand work, large decks, a lot of the same buzzwords over and over again that actually become meaningless and don't mean anything to guests or customers. So, make sure that you have a tight definition, they're different from each other, succinctly communicated.

That they're ownable, meaning that we do something different with these brands than anybody else does, or anybody else who claimed that space would be, it would not hold true.

Next, they need to be truthful. There's way too much, there's way too much over-promising in this business. There's way too much, too many words that sound great, but are not executed on property. And in this business, it's even worse to do… it's really, really bad to do that in any business, but in this business, you have these aspirational qualities and all these… all this stuff that sounds great, and you walk in the door.

And it's like Mike Tyson said, everything… everybody has a plan to get punched in the face. You walk through the door, and it comes true. It's not true. You lost that customer for life.

So, I hammer home, whatever we tell the guests, whatever we tell our customers, whatever we talk about our brands, they must be truthful.

And lastly, as we try to do this around the world, they have to be executable. We just opened a Thompson in Shanghai. Many of the people have never been to a boutique hotel, a lifestyle hotel, let alone been to a Thompson hotel. So, our brands must be written in a way, communicated in a way, trained in a way, that they're actually executable across the world at many different time zones of people who have never experienced the hospitality like we create.

Weinstein: Very good. It's a lot to absorb there and think through, but it's an interesting opportunity for you to really kind of step back and look at what boutique and lifestyle really should mean, and how… and especially how they're executed.

Lalvani: It's an exciting challenge.

Weinstein: So, about a year in now at Hyatt, it's a big move to a much bigger corporate environment, a brand structure. What are your biggest learns, any aha moments or revelations, discoveries?

Lalvani: For sure, for sure. I think it's been incredible how our team has been embraced by the Hyatt organization. That's been really wonderful, and that comes from the top, that comes from Mark Hoplamazian's leadership and his empathetic and leadership were… It's really built on trust, and business is personal at Hyatt, from Tom Pritzker to Mark to the whole organization. And so I think you really feel that at Hyatt.

It’s a purpose-driven company, and it's real. The culture of care, the caring for people speaking to be their best, that's felt throughout the entire Hyatt organization, and that's something… it's not just talk… They walk the talk. So that's been a real revelation that a company of that size that is a public company can still feel like a family-run business, where the word is the bond, and that there's a purpose of care. So that's been wonderful to experience.

I think the other aha moment was that what we built with Standard International, with Standard and Bunkhouse, is really special. And the way we approach the brands, the way we approach experiences, is different than, I think, many in the industry.

And I'll tell you, Jeff, one of the reasons is every single project, when we were a small private company, every single project felt like do or die for us.

When I took on the brand from Andre, there was a lot of questions. Can Standard live on after Andre's gone? And so, I treated every project as I had something to prove. It was a do or die. What we did London had to be better than anything that we had ever done before. We did Bangkok, had to be better than anything we'd ever done before. I put that pressure on myself, I put that pressure on the team, but a lot to live up to. I wanted to make sure we did it. If we didn't, there wouldn't have been a company.

Same thing when we took on Bunkhouse. We had to make sure that St. Augustine was better than anything we'd done before. We had to make sure that San Fernando was better than anything. Otherwise, people would have said it died with the founder leaving, and that we couldn't let that happen. I saw what happened to Morgan's Hotel Group when Ian Schrager left, or what happened to W Hotels when Barry Sternlicht left, or what happened to Ace Hotels when Alex Calderwood sadly passed away. And it was my duty and my challenge to make sure that we could live on beyond the founders and honor their legacy but create a real lasting enterprise.

So, I think taking the culture of the purpose of care Hyatt has with our creativity and passion and do-or-die mentality, that is something I've been saying at Hyatt. One plus one equals three, and that's how I really feel.

Weinstein: As you mentioned, there's so many lifestyle brands out there now. What isn't a lifestyle brand? Even the economy brands that come out today, you know, claim to be lifestyle in one form or another because the space has gotten so crowded up and down the spectrum. In your opinion, where's the bigger opportunity in lifestyle today?

Lalvani: Well, to start with the question of what makes it a lifestyle brand or not. You know, one of the things when we were doing the transaction for Standard International – I told Mark I would take on this new role under a few conditions is a strong word... What I needed to make this successful and make it work were a few things. One was that I wanted to keep our whole team together because I've never been in hotel operations. I'm not a designer. I'm not specialist in any of the areas, functional areas. I've never worked in a restaurant. I'm able to… for some reason, I'm able to orchestrate this well, and lead this, but I can't do anything without the team, and I couldn't inherit it. And I wanted to bring as many people as wanted to join the cause from Hyatt. I needed to keep the whole team together.

So, to me, if a brand doesn't have a team behind it that cares passionately and deeply and works on it every single day with that level of intensity, that's not going to be a great brand.

Second thing I asked Mark was that if we're gonna do this, I would like to take our existing brands and the brands that we're… that I'm taking on, and move them outside of Chicago to our hubs in New York and Austin. Chicago's an incredible place, but it's possible to get absorbed into a mothership with all the best of intentions and lose the soul of the brands. So, Mark agreed to that. So, we moved Thompson and Andaz and Dream Hotels to New York City. And we moved JdV, Joie de Vivre, JDV by Hyatt, to Austin, Texas, and to consolidate with Bunkhouse and the operations there. So, I wanted to take the best of what had been built, but bring the soul to these brands from the team that we had in creative hubs like New York and Austin.

And third, I said it was very important to me that I report directly to Mark, and make sure that we have a seat at the table, that we don't get subordinated in some fashion with, again, all the best of intentions, that we get the support we need, and have a seat at the table to talk about what I think it means to create great brands.

So, those three things, for me, were the ingredients to making this successful. And I think if I didn't have those ingredients, I can't speak for other companies, if I didn't put the right structure in place, and the right people in place, and in the right places, this wouldn't come to fruition.

Weinstein: So, within lifestyle, experiential's been the big buzzword. Everybody's got to have some sort of adjacency, or some kind of really cool programming inside the hotel. That's been going on now for four or five years, I'd say, maybe longer. Where does experiential go next?

Lalvani: It's a very interesting question, and I think the idea of trying to do everything within a hotel, like we used to do in the old days, bring it all together, is getting more and more difficult, because there's been this democratization, I say, of culinary and culture, and you go to cities all over the place, and there are people doing interesting things when it comes to retail, when it comes to F&B, when it comes to restaurants and bars and nightlife and wellness, and so it's really hard for the hotels to be the best at everything.

So, to me, it's a little bit back to the basics. Provide people with an amazing stay, understand the service culture that you're delivering, know your guests extremely well, and deliver what they need at any given time, in any given place, as opposed to trying to do everything in the coolest way possible for everybody. We can't be that good.

I think the second thing that's a really big deal for myself and lots of people these days, is wellness. It's an overused word. But the idea that your non-alcoholic wine list is someday going to be as long as your alcoholic wine list, or your mocktail list is going to be as long as your cocktail list, I think that's a real thing. I think the integration of wellness into people's lives is an enormous opportunity, and it's not even an opportunity, it's a necessity.

We have two great brands within Hyatt that I think were leaders and will be leaders again, Miraval and Alila. I think leaning into those brands as something that takes care of your mind, body, and soul is a big deal, and using those learnings across our brands, whether it's… I don't care if it's luxury, or lifestyle, or whatever segments you want to call them, or economy, or… I'm not good at those industry segments, but that infusion of how people live, and how people take care of themselves, I think, is a place where we as an industry are behind, and the customers are ahead of us, and we need to catch up.

Weinstein: One last question, Amar. What are you learning about yourself as a professional as your journey continues?

Lalvani: It's a great question. I think I had a lot to prove and deliver for myself and for our shareholders. There was a time… many people don't know this, but we were out of money at Standard. We had $19,000 in our bank account, and we couldn't make payroll. And the company was going to be dead. And I took money out of my bank account, everything I had, and put it into the company. No one even knows that, except probably Amber Asher, who was the general counsel at the time. I did that, and kind of guilted the other investors to put money in. That was the depths of where we were.

We got ourselves back on our feet. We did the Standard London, we did Bangkok, all the projects I said, remembering where we were at those depths and making sure that we built and nurtured the company and the team, and built incredible projects around the world. But really brought us back from the brink.

And after getting the sale done to Hyatt, I really have nothing left to prove professionally, I've kind of realized that. So now it's about everybody else. And nothing gets me more excited than nurturing the team, finding roles for people around the world, and letting the next generation of talent rise and shine.

And for me, what I want to do is fulfill my obligations to Hyatt, have an impact on the company, have an impact on the industry, not for my sake, but for the sake of the team and the legacy that I've inherited.

Weinstein: A noble cause for you, and a noble opportunity moving forward. So, congratulations on all your successes.

Lalvani: Thank you so much.

Weinstein: Amar Lalvani, president and creative director of Lifestyle Hotels for Hyatt Hotels Corp. Thanks for being with me today.

Lalvani: Good to see you, Jeff.