🍍 7 things I learned from Ace Hotel

May 31, 2022

I want to have better inputs. Better inputs leads to better outputs. We need to be inspired to inspire others.

This was one of my goals starting this newsletter. Finding and sharing inspiration for providing better hospitality to our guests and team members.

I’ll be honest: inspiration has been a bit of a struggle for me recently. Travel is booming, but I’ve been less inspired by creative hospitality than I was a few months ago. I know so many are providing this, but some days it feels hard to find who is doing interesting things to serve their guests.

This weekend, walking around San Francisco's Mission district I picked up Magazine B’s feature issue on the Ace Hotel brand.

Their approach to storytelling is comprehensive and inspiring: photography that provides context on the brand’s origin story, interviews from a wide cast of characters, and editorial that fills in the gaps.

Here’s a few things I picked up about the Ace brand and how they provide hospitality that might inspire you as well.

The role of a hotel

“I think a hotel concentrates a person’s lifestyle into one place. I believe the experience in a hotel for even a single night could change a person’s whole trip.”

- Jason Holley, CEO of Universal Design Studio (participated in the design for Ace Hotel Shoreditch)

“A hotel is a city”

“A hotel is a city. Building a hotel is like building a community. When you partner with and bring in more people, you bring in more ideas from other brands and depth and richness to the community.”

-Brad Wilson, President, Ace Hotel

Media as a connection point

“Magazines, books, and music are easy mediums for developing bonds. The magazines and LP records provided in the rooms reflect the taste of the Ace Hotel brand and the ambiance in each city.”

Design as a magnet for the right people

The key role of brand collaborations

“Collaboration is the defining foundation of Ace Hotel as a brand, and a major feature that explains Ace as a lifestyle.”

“Their vocation was their vacation”

John Jay, CEO of GX Agency and a longtime collaborator with the Ace founders, said this about the people that made up the company - they all shared a lifestyle:

Finding and telling authentic stories

…and those are a few of the ideas that inspired me from this feature profile.

But a big part of this was the visual storytelling. Pick up a copy of the magazine for yourself here.