Christina Jelski
It’s rough to imagine of any footwear significantly less quintessentially New York than the flip-flop, but Margaritaville Accommodations & Resorts is hoping to obstacle that assumption when it opens its Instances Square assets this thirty day period.
Regarded for greeting company with a towering flip-flop installation in each and every lobby, the way of living brand name is betting significant on a hybrid participate in in the Huge Apple, hoping to blend a huge-metropolis, large-rise lodge practical experience with signature island-motivated things normally a lot more suited to a vacation resort location.
It really is truly worth noting that Margaritaville, which also has an city resort in Nashville beneath its belt, is far from the only vacation resort-centric hospitality idea planting flags in city options.
Luxurious brand Aman plans to create off the success of its city resort in Tokyo with a very predicted opening in midtown Manhattan later on this 12 months. And Melia Motels Worldwide, a team best recognised for beachside all-inclusives, has prolonged focused town expansion with its Innside by Melia offshoot, which due to the fact its start in 2007 has popped up in markets like Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam and, yes, even New York.
Among these models, however, Margaritaville is the one particular potentially the most overt in its homage to the prototypical tropical getaway. Inspite of its city surroundings, the Margaritaville Resort Situations Square will attribute tiki hut and palm tree decor at its sprawling, two-story Margaritaville Cafe, and hallways and guestrooms will be outfitted in light-weight and vivid beachy hues. Higher than each mattress, a ceiling admirer — an amenity almost never noticed in New York — will simulate ocean breezes.
Trying to keep in line with the resort concept, sightseeing routines, no matter if to the Statue of Liberty or Empire Condition Creating, will be referred to by personnel as “excursions.” And the property’s out of doors, heated pool guarantees to keep open up practically calendar year-round, or at least as lengthy as temps continue to be over around 36 degrees.
And nevertheless, for the duration of a late April tricky-hat tour of the resort, common manager Kori Yoran told me that the residence will largely be linked to the present Margaritaville franchise in identify only, saying the brand’s New York outpost will be unlike any other in the brand’s hospitality portfolio.
He pointed to the resort’s 5 o’Clock Someplace indoor-out of doors rooftop bar as evidence. The sleek area will offer sweeping views of Manhattan as very well as unobscured sightlines of the Periods Square Ball Drop and a specially curated menu of upscale meals and beverage solutions. According to Yoran, the bar will be equipped to keep its possess in opposition to any other substantial-conclusion rooftop bar in New York.
It surely would seem a bold declare. Yoran, nevertheless, is no stranger to New York’s rooftop scene, acquiring most not too long ago labored as the GM of Dream Hotel Group’s Desire Midtown, a New York property known for its nightlife-targeted PHD Terrace rooftop.
Regardless of whether the Margaritaville Resort Times Sq. can make its laid-back again vacation resort vibe successfully translate in a metropolis as frenetic as New York stays to be observed, but in a competitive landscape awash with sleek and occasionally downright critical hospitality ideas, it truly is apparent that the additional family members exciting-oriented Margaritaville is possible to get pleasure from a high degree of differentiation.
And the transfer also helps make sense from a enterprise viewpoint. For most brand names, it is really sensible to extend to wherever your guests previously go.
After all, present-day vacationers are much from static. The Aman loyalist most likely feels just as at residence in the secluded Bali countryside as in an city jungle, and a repeat Paradisus by Melia guest could reserve just as lots of all-inclusive stays as they do metropolis getaways.
And for the Margaritaville supporter clean off a family members getaway at the brand’s new Bahamas outpost, why not present them an possibility for their annual pilgrimage to Broadway, as perfectly?
New York may well not have substantially in common with Nassau, but Yoran was fast to level out just one massive similarity.
“It is really effortless to ignore, but we are continue to, in simple fact, on an island,” he stated. “The island of Manhattan.”