Five Houses Equals One Hotel

Winter’s a good time to spend most of the day at your desk, looking out onto a white yard, bare trees and gray sky, which has its own austere charms. Except I had to be looking at the computer screen most of the time, so the words I was typing would come out more or less as I wanted.

Mostly I worked on an article on the hotel market today, and this time around—not sure why I didn’t know this before—I learned of the industry consensus on which hotels are “luxury” and which are merely “upper upscale.” As I said, it seems to be a consensus, not based on any kind of measurement, but reputation.

Luxury = Four Seasons, InterContinental, Mandarin, Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis and W Hotels, among others (don’t ask what the others are, this is just a rough list).

Upper-upscale = Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Omni, Renaissance, Sheraton and Westin, among others.

I was surprised to learn that I’d actually stayed at a luxury hotel, the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn, Mich. Of course I didn’t pay for it. I’ve stayed at most of the upper-upscale brands, too, rarely paying for those either. But it left me wondering what makes the Ritz a luxury brand, besides the fact that its name means luxury. Then it occurred to me: fox hunting prints on the walls. The Ritz-Carlton had those, the others don’t. (See May 24, 2004 for more on that.)