Six Senses Are Abruptly All over the place. Contained in the Luxurious Resort’s Rising World Empire.

If somebody hit you within the head (laborious) simply earlier than the pandemic, and also you’re solely waking up now, in the course of 2024, you’ll have observed some adjustments. For example, the worldwide proliferation of Six Senses motels and resorts.

As soon as a comparatively quiet group of wellness-focused Asian resorts for in-the-know Europeans, Six Senses is now within the midst of a breakneck opening spree with the U.S. sq. in its sights. Since 2019—when lodge big IHG dropped $300 million in money to amass the operator’s then 16 motels and resorts from personal fairness group Pegasus Capital Advisors—it’s grown to 26 city motels and vacation spot resorts in 21 nations throughout 4 continents. (Its Vana resort in India is considered one of Robb Report‘s 50 best luxury hotels on the planet).

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Blink once more and that quantity might have doubled. By 2026, Six Senses, now the flagship model of IHG’s luxurious and way of life portfolio, hopes to have a shingle hanging in London, Bangkok, Dubai, Lisbon, Napa, and Tel Aviv. There are at the moment 43 Six Senses within the pipeline, which can lengthen Six Senses footprint from the Carolinas to Victoria Falls. A lot of these new properties will come full of branded residences.

So is Six Senses making an attempt to beat the world by way of ayurvedic drugs, longevity spa remedies, and mindfulness workout routines?

“It’s been a hell of a experience,” admits CEO Neil Jacobs. “However the reply isn’t any, and we’ve got an actual viewpoint on that.”

Extra on that viewpoint momentarily, however it’s value pausing to notice that regardless of his protestations, Jacobs involves Six Senses with 14 years of expertise with a lodge group that’s controversial rather more overtly concerned with turning planet Earth into one huge 5-star lodge foyer: specifically, the 4 Seasons. As senior vice chairman of operations for the 4 Seasons’s Asia Pacific area, he witnessed the corporate develop from roughly two dozen motels into the 130-ish-address, Invoice Gates– and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal–owned leviathan of luxurious it’s right this moment. The 4 Seasons’s said purpose is 200 motels. However Jacobs tells Robb Report it’s neither his or IHG’s intention to show Six Senses into the Michael Kors of opulent wellness resorts.

“We predict much less is extra,” he says of that aforementioned viewpoint. “Our rivals are all about progress. With Six Senses the dialog could be very a lot the alternative of that. You’ve acquired to be actually cautious about what you do and the place you go. I imply, we began with eight resorts in 2012. Then there have been 11, and we removed two or three. At this time, there are 26. So we’ve solely opened 18 in practically 12 years, actually.”

Nonetheless, the Bangkok-based firm is hurtling towards 60-plus properties, a quantity Jacobs says he’s “comfy” with. What occurs past that’s stickier.

“Now we have 4 initiatives in Italy. We may do one other 5, however why?” says Jacobs. “As an alternative, let’s transfer to a different nation and unfold, fairly than simply inundate the model in a single nation, despite the fact that there’s locations to do it. It’s a continuous argument internally. Now we have some nice locations coming to Italy, however we don’t have Venice. So then my crew says, ‘If we’ve got a Venice deal, are you going to say, ‘Don’t do it?’ Good query. However the reply is, ‘perhaps.’”

Whether or not it’s Six Senses, the 4 Seasons, or Auberge (one other model that has seen a equally speedy enlargement), the reply to the query “When does amount extinguish the spark of high quality?” is value not less than a billion. But it surely’s additionally an issue that highlights the welcome proven fact that, despite the current slump, “luxurious” is profitable; it could have already received.

From style to journey, a rising share of companies have repositioned themselves to serve the high-end client, as rising international wealth helps superior margins realized by way of the relative simplicity of a luxurious rebrand. The inexpensive household resort of yesterday turns into the aspirational seaside playpen of right this moment. So long as demand for luxurious all the things is right here, deep-pocketed lodge teams will develop to fulfill it.

On the similar time, the success of “luxurious” creates a transparent existential dilemma: If luxurious turns into the usual setting, it’s by definition not an indulgence, not a luxurious. And as luxurious turns into extra grey and undifferentiated, the imprecise, eye-of-the-beholder high quality that was as soon as its power, is now its legal responsibility.

It’s an issue that Jacobs feels that Six Senses was uniquely designed to deal with.

“That sixth sense in our title, we see it as instinct,” he says. “It’s attention-grabbing as a result of considered one of our initiatives for this yr in wellness is non secular wellness. Up to now, we’ve finished quite a lot of yoga, we’ve finished quite a lot of meditation, however we haven’t finished quite a lot of overtly non secular applications. We predict the time is true.”

These applications serving up, non-religious, lightly-woo spirituality on a silver platter roll out later this yr and provide a key differentiator for the model’s quickest rising buyer base: Individuals.

“Again in 2012, it was predominately a European buyer, I’d say 85 %,” says Jacobs. “There was no enterprise coming from the U.S. At this time, the U.S. is our quantity market, despite the fact that we don’t have something open within the U.S.”

It’s not for lack of making an attempt. Six Sense deliberate to open in Manhattan alongside the Excessive Line in a doomed Bjarke Ingles–designed tower that was crushed by a Gambino crime family construction bribery scandal and the following chapter of its developer. Six Senses has since discovered a brand new web site on twenty third St. between Seventh and Eighth Aves. in Chelsea, however is not less than three years out.

It’s having a greater, if not altogether simpler, time with the 236-acre farm in Hudson Valley in Upstate New York. The positioning of a failed “secret hotel” undertaking, Six Senses snatched up the land for $13.7 million in 2022, making it a number of the solely actual property the model owns (as with many manufacturers, exterior buyers usually carry the deeds). Though it might be the primary five-star flag within the area, the undertaking has confronted neighborhood opposition that might scuttle one more try to create a footprint within the U.S.

“I don’t assume it’s going to work,” Del LaMagna, whose property shares a border with the positioning, informed the Hudson Valley Pilot. “[IHG] determined they wished to be right here, they began hiring good native individuals to determine it out, however this complete concept of unique resorts for wealthy individuals simply doesn’t work up right here.”

That’s a matter of opinion, however Six Senses plans for the U.S. lengthen far past the city of Clinton. Apart from city motels in New York, L.A., and Miami, it’s going to open a collection of resorts, beginning with a 500-acre estate on the edge of Napa and a multi-island project off the coast of South Carolina spanning Hilton Head, Daufuskie, and Bay Level. The gargantuan scale of these properties will finally facilitate the festivals and retreats that the model has been lately investing in.

“It’s quite a lot of yoga, quite a lot of spirituality, quite a lot of enjoyable, a dance, quite a lot of motion,” he says. “These sorts of festivals resonate with individuals.”

So in the event you’re simply waking up, welcome to a world the place Six Senses is all over the place unexpectedly. However Jacobs hopes that by deciding on “extraordinary properties” and by “demonstrating our values in a extremely significant manner” that the resorts will match into the ecosystem like redwoods in a pine forest. Name it a sixth sense.

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