Let’s be absolutely honest here: most of the time, the sense of place is declared as a marketing statement on a press release rather than felt. The design references are borrowed or outsourced to the same designers doing several other comparable hotels. The programming is uninspired or lazy. The service is inconsistent. What these brands share is not a point of view but an absence of one, papered over by a positioning document and a rates strategy. Luxury hospitality, at its best, is the product of operators who have dared to be everything for a specific type of guest rather than desirable to as many guests as possible