News

By: Andrew Posil, Director of Sales, Hospitality

While the national and New York metro lodging markets boast strong metrics, boutique hotels, as a subset, are outperforming their branded brethren. Despite the relatively new product’s outstanding performance, defining and classifying what constitutes a boutique hotel remains a challenge.

Since Ian Shrager and Steven Rubell in 1984 first opened the doors to Midtown Manhattan’s Morgans, the original boutique hotel, it became clear that this new approach to lodging would become a hit. Initially, Morgans’ design and attention to detail offered guests a distinct and stylish, yet also functional, experience that could be found nowhere else. Morgans pulsed with a "who’s who" of pop culture which drove notoriety and inspired competing hoteliers to push the envelope of the hotel experience. They, too, sought to create a fashionable and hip environment using Morgans as their example. Despite the early excitement, the Morgans’ experience and effect far surpassed what could have been anticipated or predicted for today’s hotel market.