Luxury hospitality company Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts continues to solidify its leadership position through the strategic expansion of its portfolio of hotels, resorts and residential developments. The company is also extending its luxury lifestyle offering through the growth of Private Retreats, its portfolio of luxury villa and vacation home rentals, its bespoke Private Jet experience and through the Four Seasons at Home luxury goods collection.
Despite industry-wide challenges caused by the pandemic, Four Seasons outlook for 2022 builds upon the success of the past year, including the addition of highly anticipated new hotels, resorts and residences in key markets, and the extension of its standalone residential collection with new properties opening last year in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Supporting this growth, the company’s longstanding shareholder, an affiliate of Cascade Investment, L.L.C. (Cascade), closed this month on its acquisition of a majority stake in Four Seasons from its long-term investment partner, an affiliate of Kingdom Holding Company (KHC). The transaction marks a pivotal point for the company, further demonstrating Cascade’s commitment to provide Four Seasons with resources to accelerate growth, support the company’s properties and owners and expand its strategic goals. KHC retains a 23.75% stake in Four Seasons and remains strongly dedicated to the company’s considerable opportunities.
“2022 marks an important moment in the evolution of Four Seasons as we sharpen our development focus in key markets, strengthen our leadership position as an iconic luxury brand and capitalize on new opportunities that will continue to drive and diversify our growth,” says John Davison, President and CEO, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. “Realizing these opportunities means investing in our greatest competitive advantage – our people. For more than 60 years, the strength of Four Seasons has been grounded in our unmatched commitment to service excellence. As we grow with intention, so too do the opportunities for our people, ensuring we create an environment in which they can flourish.”
Davison continues, “Thriving employees ultimately deliver an exceptional guest experience. And as we adapt to the pandemic with innovations such as our Lead With Care health and safety program, the deep connection between the success of our employees and the service delivered to our guests has never been more important to Four Seasons long-term success.”
Elevating Four Seasons Global Portfolio
Four Seasons is building on the momentum of its successful 2021 openings in strategic markets, including in Napa Valley, California; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Taormina, Italy. The company continues to accelerate expansion plans worldwide with four openings planned for 2022, including exciting new developments in Tamarindo, Mexico; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Nashville, Tennessee and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Along with the accelerated pace of new openings, the high valuations and increasing demand for existing Four Seasons properties managed on behalf of owners speaks to the strength of the Four Seasons brand.
Four Seasons has more than 50 new projects under planning or development, including in Italy, Spain, China, Japan, Colombia, Belize and across key markets in the US, all of which will add to the company’s existing portfolio of 122 hotels and resorts and 48 residential properties in 47 countries around the world.
“Four Seasons has a strong, strategic growth trajectory – an extensive pipeline of projects that will open in key global destinations, with visionary development partners who share our commitment to excellence,” says Bart Carnahan, President, Global Business Development and Portfolio Management, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. “Our residential business in particular is a key pillar in our growth plans, with a five-year pipeline of USD 7 billion in gross sales value comprising more than 30 projects worldwide.”
Carnahan continues: “Our continued growth in residential, a space in which we’ve been a leader since 1985, speaks to our deep understanding of the luxury consumer – those who want to live and experience the Four Seasons lifestyle. With our development partners, we continue to capitalize on the right opportunities in markets that are relevant to luxury consumers, elevating our residential offering and ensuring that Four Seasons is the address of choice in every location where we operate.”
New standalone Private Residences, developments not connected to a hotel or resort, set to open in the coming years include Four Seasons Private Residences Dubai at Jumeirah – a project that fully sold out before public sales began – Four Seasons Private Residences Lake Austin and Four Seasons Private Residences Marrakech at M Avenue. These new standalone developments join the company’s current collection in London, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Other upcoming residential developments connected to an existing or soon-to-open Four Seasons property include Fort Lauderdale, Minneapolis, Nashville, Mumbai, Cartagena and Belize.
As Four Seasons extends its portfolio globally, the company does so with consideration for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) priorities. Four Seasons is committed to sustainable hospitality, including reducing carbon emissions, conserving water, eliminating waste, and sourcing responsibly. To further its commitments to address waste and protect local ecosystems, the company aims to remove all single-use plastic from the guest experience by the end of 2022. Four Seasons has a long history of employee care, community support and philanthropy. Central to Four Seasons employee experience and social impact programming is the company’s commitment to supporting cancer research, and the advancement of diversity, inclusion, equality and belonging at Four Seasons corporate offices and properties worldwide.
Enhancing the Guest Experience
Last year, Four Seasons announced the appointment of Marc Speichert as the company’s first Chief Commercial Officer with the goal of driving key commercial initiatives to enhance brand value and market share, accelerate revenue growth and deliver on an ambitious vision: affirming Four Seasons as the most guest-centric, digitally-driven luxury brand.
To better understand the drivers of guest satisfaction the company is embarking on a journey to rethink how processes, data and technology fit together to truly enable a holistic guest view. In doing so, Four Seasons will be able to deliver much more personalized experiences and establish a new industry standard for guest satisfaction and service excellence.
This personalization and guest-focused lens extends to Four Seasons digital ecosystem, and investments in technology across these platforms continue to roll out globally, focused on gaining deeper insights to enhance the guest experience. The evolution of the company’s digital capabilities, driven by Four Seasons award-winning App and Chat and FourSeasons.com, will further personalize every touch point of the guest journey. With usage growing by nearly 300% since 2019, the App’s industry-leading technology empowers guests and residents to control their Four Seasons experience, engaging with real Four Seasons employees on property who deliver curated service characterized by personal connections and emotional intelligence. New App and Chat features to be rolled out also include the introduction of a mobile key and mobile payments, as well as enhancements to the restaurant and bar digital experience.
