For those well-versed in financial markets, the term “flight to quality” ought to be a familiar one. In the realm of luxury travel, however, a different flight to quality is taking shape. All around the world, high-net-worth individuals are prioritising higher-calibre holiday accommodations and amenities, as they seek to make the most of their limited leisure time.

“After the Covid lockdowns, we’ve seen an explosion in the number of people who travel,” says Antonio Citterio, chairman and co-founder of Milan-based ACPV Architects Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel. “This explosion has revealed to us that what really matters is quality: the quality of the place, the quality of the things you see around you. I believe that, more and more, the important factor is not in the act of travel, but in the quality that you find.”

Founded in 2000 by Citterio and Patricia Viel, ACPV Architects’ projects range from urban planning to residential and mixed-use developments. The architecture and interior design firm has also worked on several high-end hotels and resorts.

“The profile of luxury travellers has changed a lot,” says Viel, who is also the firm’s CEO. She adds that, with the boom in tourism around the world in the post-pandemic era, “tourism for leisure has become a human activity, and cannot be considered a marginal aspect of our lives anymore”. At the same time, demand for higher-quality travel and destinations has become an increasingly complex beast to manage, because, as Viel notes, “the range of expectations has widened”.

Authenticity at the forefront

Still, quality is not just about putting top-tier materials in fancy locations. Architects and interior designers must work with partners to make sure that the completed project is not only well-made, but also caters to the tastes and needs of travellers. 

Viel points out that, for the high-end side of things in particular, “the demand is for authenticity and for learning about new things”. This sentiment is one that’s been echoed throughout the luxury travel industry since borders started reopening in 2022. Travellers are no longer looking to get out of town and luxuriate in a set of cherry-picked, manicured and sometimes clichéd activities; they’re looking for something rooted in the reality of the places they visit.

ACPV Architects’ approach is thus not to design something entirely new and different in the places it works in, but to create something that blends in seamlessly and celebrates the local context. “For us, the ability with our projects to convey history, culture, craftsmanship and a sense of the given place is fundamental,” says Viel.

The firm recently broke ground on the Capella Kenting resort development in Taiwan. The project, commissioned by Riant Capital and Capella Hotels and Resorts, will see over 60 villas set within the natural seafront setting of Kenting. “The resort’s design draws inspiration from the rich cultural context of the location,” says Viel, adding that traditional craft and construction techniques, such as low stacked stone walls, have been integrated into the space to “minimise visual impact while paying homage to aboriginal culture”.

Elsewhere in Taiwan, ACPV Architects has worked on The Sky Taipei, a 56-floor skyscraper that will house two hotels: Andaz Taipei and Park Hyatt Taipei. The team drew inspiration from Chinese bamboo and classical Greek columns to “celebrate the city’s unique blend of modernism and tradition”.

Another part of creating authentic experiences involves authentic accommodations. Even as travellers fly off to a different and perhaps unknown destination, they are seeking at least some semblance of comfort and familiarity. Viel says ACPV Architects has thus imbued in its hotel and resort projects a “sensibility for the residential”. “This is to say that you don’t have a feeling of using a product, but you have the impression of living a moment of true intimacy in your home away from home.”

Changing tastes

The push towards authenticity is not the only trend that has moved the needle in luxury travel. In fact, changes in recent years have all been part of a wider shift that has come amid burgeoning globalisation and technology. “In the past, if we think about tourism in general, travel was much simpler,” Viel points out. “Differentiation was based on the quality of the location, of the price, of the hotel, of the food. Today, the consumer is much more mature.”

One of the factors shaping travellers’ behaviour today is increased mindfulness. This is a trend that has continued to grow even in the post-pandemic years; millennials and Gen Z are embracing the idea of self-care, while baby boomers and Gen X are increasingly looking to enjoy themselves as they ease into retirement. 

“People have learned to take time for themselves and engage in tourism in new ways, and not necessarily only during their time off work,” says Viel. Travellers are indeed spending more time on holidays, with a global average of one extra day per trip, according to a Mastercard report released in June 2024.

Hotels and resorts have to keep up with this, while bearing in mind that travellers are also going overseas outside traditional peak periods as off-peak travel regains popularity. 

“Seasonality and seasonal services have become less significant because of a constant and open flow,” says Viel. “For example, in Italy, what you would often have is a family who manages a hotel at the sea and a hotel in the mountains, and [the family moves] between the two according to the season. Nowadays, this model could no longer exist — even if there were still seasonal flows, it would be almost impossible to close a hotel today.”

Making it work

On the architectural side of things, Citterio says it’s always important to return to the idea of quality. “From the time we started designing hotels, we have always been concerned about luxury — but not about luxury that’s perceived, but luxury as quality of place, quality of architecture, quality of materials, quality of services,” he says. 

“What we have focused on is bringing the perceived quality of ‘grand’ historic hotels, which would have a long tradition of great service, and translating this idea of quality into a contemporary product.”

Exemplifying this notion is one of ACPV Architects’ ongoing projects, the upcoming Serlas wing of the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St Moritz. To facilitate and improve the guest experience, the space has been designed to allow for “harmonious relations with the natural surroundings, thanks to comfortable spaces where people can gather and spend time together”.

When completed, the new building will be six floors high and offer 25 guestrooms; in addition to the locally inspired design, materials are also being sourced from nearby regions. Going beyond the idea of old-school, classic glamour, the rooms give off an air of warm, understated elegance, thanks to oak detailing, stone flooring and wall panelling with wool. 

Even when working in a space steeped with history, ACPV Architects looks at ways to modernise its designs for the luxury traveller of today. 

In Italy, the firm was tasked with creating the interiors of the Bulgari Hotel Roma, which is housed in a building built between 1936 and 1938. While retaining the style and materials that would make sense in context, including marble mosaic roundels and Ginori vases from the 1930s, ACPV Architects incorporated contemporary touches such as custom fabrics with Bulgari-designed motifs that bring the space into the 21st century. 

Algorithmic architecture

Also leading high-end hospitality design into the present — and future — is a whole suite of emerging technologies. Perhaps most prominent among these in recent years is artificial intelligence (AI), which has quickly taken just about every industry by storm.

“AI is a tool of great potential,” says Citterio. Still, he notes that the technology is not something that can replace human architects wholesale, because it still lacks a creative spark. “Certainly, AI helps you in the initial phases of a project to understand the possibilities you have, but at the end of it all, there is always the architect … I don’t believe AI will substitute architects.”

For ACPV Architects, Citterio adds, AI is “almost like having a team of good researchers”, who carry out preliminary investigative work and inform the team about the range of possibilities with any given project. 

Viel says this kind of work is well underway: “What is already happening — and also within our studio — is the use of algorithms to develop studies on how projects would relate to its territorial context.” She explains that data about the general conditions of a site are used to generate an understanding of how the project would fit into the area, and how the two would work together.

Optimisation is another way in which technology can benefit the design process. “We also use algorithms and study different possible options to study how functions are distributed, for example, in a resort project, in order to balance the guest journey,” says Viel.

“This is fundamental for us,” she continues, “because what we are aiming to deliver with hospitality projects is comfort, with respect to the natural context.”

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