MANDARIN ORIENTAL, NEW YORK
WALDORF ASTORIA BANGKOK
OCTOBER 2026 `250
THE WORLD’S LIVING LAB
NEW YORK RESONATES WITH THE FUTURE IN ITS PRESENT
DESTINATION INDIA
WEDDINGS AND CEREMONIES IN INDIAN HOTELS
THE TIGER & THE GATE HOROLOGY AT THE JAIPUR PALACE
THAILAND’S NEXT CHAPTER WITH INDIA AN EXPERT’S OPINION
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CONTENTS
OCTOBER 2026
UPFRONT
06 TRAVEL NEWS
The latest from aviation, travel and tourism
26
ART OF UNDOING A longevity and wellness retreat in Phuket
DESTINATION INDIA Domestic hotels for weddings and celebrations
12 COVER STORY
THE WORLD’S LIVING LAB NYC resonates with the future in its present
FEATURES 42 THE AIRPORT LOUNGE
66
IS HAVING A SECOND CAREER Across India, lounges are becoming less like glorified waiting rooms and more like all-encompassing destinations
34 TRIED & TESTED
78 Mandarin Oriental, New York 79 Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit Bangkok 80 Waldorf Astoria Bangkok 81 Saikindō
THE TIGER & THE GATE A rendezvous in Jaipur with horology
48 CHECKING INTO A GALLERY How hotels are making art as a part of their story
52 HERITAGE HOTELS AS
CULTURAL HUBS How hotels are welcoming artists and positioning art as one of their USPs
60 AUTHENTIC INTELLIGENCE
Major chains are shifting from simple chatbots towards systems that book, plan and personalise a guest’s entire stay
56
SPOTLIGHT ON
PATTARAANONG NA CHIANGMAI
on the India-Thailand relationship
62 HOTEL BRANDS TAKING
TO THE SEA Luxury cruising is being rewritten, and it isn’t traditional cruise lines leading the charge
72 BEYOND THE BOX
Craft of gifting and how to make sure it lands
79 OCTOBER 2026
74 PEOPLE
Opinions by Bob Suri and Xenia Jamshyd Lam on hospitality, AI and luxury
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EDITOR’S LETTER PATTARAANONG NA CHIANGMAI
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Pattaraanong Na Chiangmai is the Deputy Governor for International Marketing, Asia and South Pacific, at the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Thailand’s relationship with India has changed shape. She shares her thoughts on this on page 56. ew York has always had an electric energy that resonates across the world. On each visit to the city, I’ve returned invigorated with ideas. For a look at the city’s blooming industries and how they’ve shape-shifted over the years, turn to page 12 to read our cover story. From tech and AI to real estate and venture capital, New York’s cauldron of economic growth is worth a deeper look. We’ve also handpicked New York bars for a post-meeting drink and hotels worth staying at, whether you’re travelling for business or leisure. The big Indian wedding season is upon us, and the ceremonial business is eyeing Indian destinations over international ones for good reason. We scan the country for top wedding hotels and spotlight everything you need to know. Airport lounges are having a second career and are no longer just waiting rooms for flights; our next story talks about how these venues have transformed into holistic spaces for rest, recovery, work and dining. We’ve taken some interesting trips; you can read about our rendezvous with horology in Jaipur (page 66) and a wellness retreat in Phuket (page 26). From consultations and saunas to Thai medicine and decoding longevity, our wellness visit to Thailand is inspiring for anyone looking for a wellbeing-coded break. Gifting options that are out of the ordinary, hotel brands taking to the sea, a closer look at how AI is changing hospitality and reviews of Waldorf Astoria Bangkok and Mandarin Oriental, New York, follow. We’ve done our best to ensure that this issue truly adds value to your business travels in more ways than one. If there are any stories, reviews, feedback or honest thoughts on our content, I’d love to hear from you at akanksha@panaceapublishing.co.in. Until then, wishing you safe travels; see you in our next issue!
Akanksha Maker Consulting Editor
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BOB SURI
Bob Suri, a seasoned hotelier with nearly two decades of experience at Four Seasons, oversees operations as the General Manager of Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi at Al Maryah Island. For this issue, he talks about how personalised service will always remain the true luxury in hospitality. Go to page 74.
XENIA JAMSHYD LAM
Xenia Jamshyd Lam is an experienced hotelier with a Master’s in Gastronomy from Italy. She is currently the General Manager at Hyatt Centric Juhu Mumbai. In this issue, she shares her opinion on hospitality’s relationship with tech and AI, and whether hotels can survive without adopting them. See page 76.
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PUBLISHER & CEO RAVI LALWANI EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MEENA LALWANI EDITORIAL CONSULTING EDITOR AKANKSHA MAKER FEATURES WRITER ESHA APHALE PRODUCTION & DESIGN HEAD AMIT CHAVAN SOCIAL MEDIA & FEATURES EXECUTIVE MARIA VERGHESE CONTRIBUTORS PATTARAANONG NA CHIANGMAI, JOSHUA KARTHIK, XENIA JAMSHYD LAM, AITARA MIRAH, BOB SURI ADVERTISING COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR RAVI LALWANI EMAIL RAVI@PANACEAPUBLISHING.CO.IN CONTACT EDITORIAL TEL 022-40046646 EMAIL EDITORIAL@PANACEAPUBLISHING.CO.IN WEBSITE thebusinesstravelindia.com LINKEDIN The Business Travel Magazine India INSTAGRAM thebusinesstravelmagazineindia ADVERTISING TEL +91 9820022110 SUBSCRIPTIONS TEL +91 9004015411 EMAIL SHMIRA@PANACEAPUBLISHING.CO.IN PRINT SUBSCRIPTION 1 YEAR (11 ISSUES) FOR JUST `2,000
‘The Business Travel Magazine India is published 11 times a year by arrangement with BMI Publishing Limited UK. BMI Publishing Limited UK assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content in this magazine’. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, PANACEA PUBLISHING PVT. LTD. cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Printed & Published by Ravi Lalwani on behalf of Panacea Publishing Pvt. Ltd. at 3 Hampton Court, 123, Wodehouse Road, Colaba, Mumbai 400 005. Printed at Indigo Press (India) Pvt. Ltd. Plot No.1C/716, Off Dadoji Konddeo Cross Road, Between Sussex And Retiwala Ind. Estate, Byculla (East), Mumbai - 400 027.
OCTOBER 2026
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UPFRONT The latest business updates on Travel, Airlines & Hotels
NEW YORK, CURATED FOR OCTOBER From Billionaires’ Row to Central Park, a handful of private experiences offer a more personal way into Manhattan this autumn. October gives New York a different kind of energy. The worst of the heat has passed, Central Park starts edging towards autumn, and walking the city becomes pleasurable again. For guests staying at Four Seasons Hotel New York, there are several ways to make the most of it, each offering a version of Manhattan that feels a little removed from the standard sightseeing circuit. Start with the private city tour. With a guide shaping the day around your interests, Manhattan can unfold at its own pace, from the architecture of Midtown to the grand facades of Fifth Avenue. There is also Billionaires’ Row, the stretch of 57th Street where some of the city’s most extravagant residential towers have transformed the skyline. Seen from street level, the scale of it all can feel almost absurd, particularly when set against the older buildings around it. For a different view of New York, the private art tour heads into the city’s gallery scene. With a guide accompanying guests through selected galleries and collections, the afternoon can take in the kind of contemporary work that rarely makes it onto a first-time visitor’s itinerary. It leaves room for curiosity, which tends to be 6 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
more rewarding than trying to tick off every museum in Manhattan. October also lends itself to Central Park. Four Seasons can arrange a private running session with a coach, turning the park’s winding paths into a two-hour route through one of the city’s most recognisable landscapes. Those who prefer a slower pace can opt for the Four Seasons picnic, with a basket of sandwiches, salads, refreshments and dessert prepared for an afternoon outdoors. Then there is Fifth Avenue, where a private shopping session with a stylist offers a more considered approach to New York’s retail scene, with private fittings and access to boutiques. Perhaps the most personal experience comes at the end of the day: a private perfume session, where guests work with expert perfumers to create a fragrance of their own. With champagne and caviar alongside the process, it makes for an unusually tactile souvenir of the city. Taken together, the experiences offer several ways through New York in October: looking up at Billionaires’ Row, disappearing into galleries, running through Central Park, lingering over a picnic or emerging from Fifth Avenue with something new. The city remains outside the hotel doors, but someone has already worked out where to take you. fourseasons.com
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TAMODI ESTATE & POLO RESERVE OPENS IN PLETTENBERG BAY, SOUTH AFRICA
Tamodi Estate & Polo Reserve has officially opened. The new estate sits in Plettenberg Bay, in South Africa’s Western Cape. Tamodi Estate & Polo Reserve joins the region as an intimate five-star boutique hotel. It blends refined design with equestrian tradition and unhurried hospitality. Tamodi Estate & Polo Reserve sits between the Robberg Peninsula and protected natural reserves. Guests reach Tamodi Estate & Polo Reserve easily from both Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. The property offers just ten suites. It also runs a working polo reserve with twenty thoroughbred horses. SOPHIE ASHBY LEADS THE DESIGN Studio Ashby designed the interiors. Sophie Ashby leads the studio. She has South African roots and was raised between South Africa and the UK. Her team built a pared-back look across every space. TEN SUITES BUILT FOR REST Each suite spans more than 100 sqm. Every room includes a fireplace and a bathtub. Panoramic mountain views extend from each suite. The main building anchors the property like a private club.
POLO HERITAGE RUNS DEEP Polo shapes daily life at the property. Stables, a playing field and training tracks support the sport. Twenty selected horses live on site. Athletes can book training retreats or pretournament camps. The estate hosts invitation-only polo tournaments. It joins the wider Plettenberg Bay polo season. That season runs from November through April. The tradition has united Western Cape communities for generations.
DINING BUILT AROUND THE SEASONS Meals draw on the property’s own garden. Nearby producers supply additional seasonal ingredients. Breakfast comes as a buffet each morning. Lunch and dinner arrive à la carte instead. A snack bar serves local specialties like biltong. The wine cellar features labels from vineyards. Some of those vineyards date back 300 years. Aperitivo hour rounds out each evening with cocktails. tamodi.co
FLIGHT T S IR F S IT E C IN S 80 YEARS S K R A M IC IF C A P CATHAY
OCTOBER 2026
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UPFRONT
AMAN
SEOUL
MARKS AMAN’S FIRST PROPERTY IN SOUTH KOREA
Aman Seoul brings the brand to South Korea for the first time. The Cheongdam destination combines a hotel, branded residences and a private Aman Club. Aman Seoul has just been announced, and it marks Aman’s first destination in South Korea. The new project will rise in Cheongdam, one of Seoul’s most prestigious districts. Overlooking the Han River in Gangnam, Aman Seoul pairs the brand with developer Shinsegae Property. Meanwhile, the project will include a hotel, branded residences and a private Aman Club. Together, these three elements mark Aman’s boldest entry into Asia yet. Design Rooted in Korean Craft Local craftspeople shaped the project’s architecture and interiors, working closely with Aman’s design team. Korean spatial traditions guide every generous suite. Meanwhile, the materials chosen reflect the city’s own sense of place. As a result, the finished spaces feel calm, grounded and deeply local. Separate entrances define the hotel, residences and Aman Club, so each element keeps its own identity and privacy. This layout also echoes Seoul itself, a city where heritage and innovation sit comfortably side by side. Wellness and Dining at the Core Wellness sits at the heart of Aman Seoul, with dedicated spa facilities spanning multiple floors. This design supports both physical and mental restoration. In addition, a global dining programme adds further depth to the overall offering. Aman Club rounds out the experience further. Its amenities include a private pool, fitness facilities and social spaces reserved for residence owners and members. Ultimately, the club creates a private setting away from the city’s fast pace. aman.com
DELTA ANNOUNCES DAILY Delta Air Lines has announced a new daily nonstop route to Japan, connecting SeattleTacoma with Tokyo Narita International Airport directly. The airline will continue operating its existing Seattle-Haneda route alongside this new addition. EXPANDING DELTA’S PACIFIC NORTHWEST GATEWAY Seattle has grown into a key Delta hub for Asia-Pacific travel. Furthermore, this new route strengthens the airport’s position as a transpacific gateway. Travellers gain more flexibility choosing between Tokyo’s two major airports now. That’s because Narita and Haneda each offer different onwards connections across Japan, depending on the final destination. 8 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
A MODERN WIDEBODY WITH FOUR CABIN CLASSES Seattle has grown into a key Delta hub for Asia-Pacific travel. Furthermore, this new route strengthens its position further. The airport now stands as a stronger transpacific gateway. Meanwhile, travellers gain more flexibility choosing between Tokyo’s two major airports. That’s because Narita and Haneda offer different onward connections. Ultimately, the best choice depends on the final destination. STRONG DEMAND DRIVING NETWORK GROWTH Business travel between the Pacific Northwest and Japan continues growing
steadily, and Seattle’s strong technology and trade ties with Asia support this demand directly. Delta’s decision to add frequency reflects real confidence in this specific corridor, as the airline continues investing in premium long-haul capacity across its wider network. WHAT BUSINESS TRAVELLERS SHOULD KNOW The new route offers greater flexibility for corporate travellers heading to Tokyo, with multiple daily options across two airports easing connection planning considerably. Delta’s continued Pacific investment signals strong confidence in this trade corridor, and further transpacific announcements seem likely as Delta builds out its 2027 network. delta.com O C T OBER 2 0 2 6
UPFRONT Hoshinoya Resorts has opened one of the more unusual hotel conversions in recent memory this August, transforming a former Meiji-era prison in Nara into a 48-suite luxury property with Hoshinoya Nara Prison. Working with longtime collaborator and architect Rie Azuma, Hoshinoya has reimagined the last surviving of architect Keijiro Yamashita’s Five Great Meiji Prisons, a structure originally built in 1908 by the very inmates who would later be held inside it.
HOSHINOYA TRANSFORMS A FORMER MEIJI-ERA PRISON INTO A HOTEL
A LAYOUT DESIGNED FOR SURVEILLANCE, REIMAGINED FOR GUESTS The hotel’s layout mimics a hand, with five former cell wings radiating outward from a central watchtower where guards once kept constant surveillance over prisoners. Each of the 48 suites merges nine to eleven former cells into a single accommodation, contrasting the century-old red-brick masonry with contemporary interior finishes. The result is a property that keeps its unsettling history visibly present rather than disguising it behind conventional luxury design. A RESTAURANT INSIDE THE FORMER DETENTION BLOCK The hotel’s former detention block now houses a Japanese-French restaurant, giving guests a genuinely striking dining setting unlike almost anywhere else in Japan. An adjoining museum, provocatively titled “An Eternal Question Posed by an Iconic Prison,” invites visitors to reflect on liberty while standing inside spaces originally built to deny it, a curatorial choice that sets this opening apart from typical adaptive-reuse hotel projects. PART OF HOSHINOYA’S BROADER DESIGN PHILOSOPHY Hoshinoya has built its reputation on precisely this kind of thoughtful, historically grounded conversion, and the Nara property continues that pattern while pushing into genuinely difficult territory. Rather than softening the site’s history, the hotel leans into it, betting that discerning travellers will find the layered narrative compelling rather than off-putting. hoshinoyaresorts.com
SEATTLE-TOKYO NARITA NONSTOP
OCTOBER 2026
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UPFRONT
SIX SENSES THE PALM, DUBAI MARKS BRAND’S UAE DEBUT
Six Senses, The Palm, Dubai has officially opened its doors. The all-suite resort sits on the West Crescent of Palm Jumeirah. Six Senses The Palm Dubai marks the brand’s first hotel anywhere in the UAE. The property opened for stays from 1 September. Six Senses, The Palm Dubai combines 61 suites with 172 privately owned branded residences. Together, they create a beachfront address looking out across the Arabian Gulf and Dubai’s skyline.
WELLNESS AT THE CENTRE Six Senses has built its wellness offering at genuine scale here. The resort houses more than 60,000 sqf of spa and wellness facilities. That space includes a dedicated Longevity Clinic alongside hydrotherapy areas. Guests can also access an IV lounge, a biohacking room and an Alchemy Bar. A massage circuit pool and squash court round out the offering further. Diagnostics and personalised programmes support each guest’s stay from arrival onward.
DESIGN ROOTED IN THE REGION Cape Town-based firm SAOTA led the architecture and interiors throughout. The design draws on regional building traditions, reworked through a modern lens. Natural stone, timber and sand-toned finishes run through every suite. Floor-to-ceiling windows and private terraces bring in light and sea air. Some terraces even include their own private pools. Planted courtyards and shaded pathways guide guests toward the resort’s private beach.
DINING AND RESIDENCES Four dining venues anchor the resort’s culinary programme. That includes a second Dubai outpost of ROKA. Menus follow the Eat with Six Senses philosophy, built around seasonal, regionally sourced ingredients. The residential side ranges widely too. Options span penthouses and sky villas through to five-bedroom Signature Villas. Residents also gain access to the hotel’s wider facilities, including a micro farm, tennis courts and running tracks. sixsenses.com
EMIRATES PREMIUM ECONOMY GETS A WORLD-FIRST ELECTRIC PRIVACY SCREEN Emirates has unveiled a striking upgrade to its Premium Economy cabin. The new Emirates Premium Economy seat now features an electric, full-height privacy screen. Emirates says it is the first seat of its kind anywhere in the world. The screen rises between every pair of neighbouring seats. Passengers raise, lower and lock it using their own seat controls. The Emirates Premium Economy seat debuts on the airline’s newest Airbus A350-900 aircraft, announced on 3 September. WHAT THE NEW SEAT ACTUALLY OFFERS Each seat measures 20 inches wide, with pitch stretching up to 39 inches. Emirates arranges the cabin seven-abreast, in a 2-3-2 layout across 28 seats. That configuration leaves just one true middle seat in every row. The seat also reclines using a cradle-style motion. This 10 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
keeps the seat within its own footprint rather than tilting into the row behind. A new leather headrest, called U-Dream and built by Safran Seats, rounds out the comfort upgrade. Its adjustable wings support the head and neck from several angles. SMALL DETAILS, BIGGER COMFORT Wireless charging arrives in Emirates Premium Economy for the first time. Every seat also gets USB-C power alongside it. A redesigned tray table now includes a built-in phone holder too. Entertainment gets an upgrade as well. Each seat comes with a 13.3-inch 4K HDR touchscreen. New aircraft will also add extra exterior camera views for passengers to enjoy during takeoff and landing. emirates.com O C T OBER 2 0 2 6
UPFRONT
NOBU HOTEL MADRID OPENS Nobu Hotel Madrid is ready to welcome guests. The hotel marks Nobu Hospitality’s fifth property in Spain. It sits on Calle Alcalá, right between Plaza de Cibeles and Puerta del Sol. As a result, guests can walk to most of the city’s key business and cultural districts. A CENTRAL ADDRESS FOR CITY STAYS The hotel has 50 rooms. It leans into Madrid’s energy instead of retreating from it. Its location puts business travellers close to meetings, and it puts leisure guests close to the action. The hotel also includes a tri-level restaurant, a bar and a rooftop terrace. Together, these give guests reasons to stay in as well as venture out. A BRAND BUILT FROM A SINGLE RESTAURANT Nobu Hospitality began far from hotels altogether. Robert De Niro, chef Nobu Matsuhisa and producer Meir Teper opened the first Nobu restaurant in Tribeca back in 1994. Hospitality only followed years later, starting with a single hotel
inside Las Vegas’s Caesars Palace in 2013. Since then, growth has been rapid. The group now runs 46 hotels, 57 restaurants and 20 branded residences worldwide. Spain, in particular, has become a stronghold, with properties already open in Ibiza, Marbella, Barcelona and San Sebastián. Madrid extends that Spanish footprint further, and a sixth property in Seville is already in the pipeline. For a brand that started with one restaurant and a handshake, that scale speaks for itself.
PART OF A GROWING IBERIAN FOOTPRINT Nobu has expanded steadily across Spain in recent years. Madrid builds on that momentum. The brand pairs JapanesePeruvian dining with understated luxury. This combination has found a receptive audience in Spain’s biggest cities. With Madrid now open, Nobu strengthens its position as one of Europe’s more consistent lifestyle hotel brands. nobuhotels.com
QATAR AIRWAYS BRINGS THE A380 BACK TO PARIS, SINGAPORE AND SYDNEY A380 network. September’s expansion effectively restores that fuller footprint. It also arrives roughly six months after disruption first forced the cuts.
Qatar Airways is bringing the Airbus A380 back to three major routes. From September 16, Paris, Singapore and Sydney will each regain superjumbo service. Until now, the airline has relied on Boeing 777 and A350 aircraft on these routes. This move marks another step in Qatar Airways’ recovery from regional airspace disruption. QATAR AIRWAYS: A FLEET REBUILDING IN STAGES The A380 first returned to service on June 16. At that point, it flew twice daily to both London Heathrow and Bangkok. That restart marked a sharp reduction from the airline’s original five-route OCTOBER 2026
A FLEET OF EIGHT, FLYING FEWER ROUTES THAN IT USED TO Qatar Airways operates eight A380s in total. Even so, the aircraft has flown a limited schedule for most of 2026. Each superjumbo carries 517 passengers across three cabins. The upper deck holds just eight First Class suites, each offering a 90-inch pitch and a full 180-degree recline. Business class follows, with 48 seats laid out in a 1-2-1 configuration for direct aisle access. Economy fills the remaining space across both decks, with 461 seats in total. Notably, the A380 also carries an onboard bar and lounge, a feature unique to this aircraft within Qatar Airways’ fleet. As a result, frequent flyers often seek it out specifically, regardless of which cabin they book. qatarairways.com THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM 11
BUSINESS IN NEW YORK
THE
WORLD’S LIVING LAB New York resonates with the future in its present Words by AKANKSHA MAKER
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BUSINESS IN NEW YORK
hile Silicon Valley was known for its ideas, the funds always came from Wall Street. In 2026, it’s safe to say that those two worlds have collided in New York City. It has now become the destination where AI, capital, hospitality, and real estate converge, and statistics bear this out. In the second quarter of 2026, NY startups raised a whopping US$8.88 billion across 233 deals, making it the city’s best-ever quarter. This also led to a 46 per cent increase compared to the previous year.
AI LEADS THE WAY
What was more surprising? AI secured almost 51 per cent of that capital. Manhattan has now overtaken San Francisco in early-stage funding: 543 companies raised seed or Series A money here in 2025, versus 486 in the Bay Area. It’s now become about density more than diversification. A founder can present their idea to an investor in Midtown, develop their product in Chelsea and finish the day at a bar in Hudson Yards, all in a day’s work, between four square miles. Speaking of consumer AI, Silicon Valley still leads. In contrast, NY is paving the way with enterprise AI, especially in the so-called dull task of integrating intelligence into finance, law, healthcare, and retail. No one in the area is claiming to create the next chatbot or aiming to; instead, they’re focusing on automating compliance, improving legal research, and customising retail services. Now, AI makes up around 35 per cent of the city’s venture capital.
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NY is paving the way with enterprise AI, especially in the socalled dull task of integrating intelligence into finance, law, healthcare, and retail OCTOBER 2026
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GENERATIVE AI
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BUSINESS IN NEW YORK
REAL ESTATE CONTINUES TO RULE
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The leasing office market shows the same trend. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, AI tenants leased over a million sqf, which was more than they leased throughout 2024. The proportion of tech leasing attributable to AI rose from 12 per cent the previous year to 56 per cent by early 2026. Anthropic took an entire building at 330 Hudson Street, totalling 465,630 sqf. The legal AI company Harvey doubled the size of its office, with the new location facing Madison Square Park. Nscale Global Holdings paid US$320 per sqf at One Vanderbilt, setting a record and becoming the first AI firm to do so. Nowadays, landlords require proof of revenue before agreeing to a lease, more than just a pitch deck. And the majority of today’s AI tenants in NYC can provide such stellar evidence of the process.
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BUSINESS IN NEW YORK
INFRA-BACKED CAPITAL
The infrastructure supporting the capital is another of NYC’s strongest assets. Cornell Tech, which is on Roosevelt Island, has 600 master’s students and 150 doctoral students studying across eight interdisciplinary programmes and has seen more than 80 startups created. These have raised nearly a billion dollars from over 1,200 alums. Unlike a conventional university, it assesses its own performance in terms of spinouts and patents rather than just the number of papers published. Together with Columbia and NYU, it supplies the talent needed to drive the AI sector. When the campus completes its expansion around 2043, it will accommodate three times as many students as it has today.
ALL-ENCOMPASSING ECOSYSTEMS
The latest developments in New York have moved beyond just office parks to full-fledged ecosystems. The two projects by Related Companies, Hudson Yards and Manhattan West, on the far west side of the city, together cost almost US$29 billion, making them the largest private development ever undertaken in the USA. Within a single walking distance, you can find office towers, luxury hotels, Michelin-star dining and a venue for performing arts for the community. As a business traveller, you can check in, meet clients, train staff, entertain a client and enjoy a meal at a three-star restaurant all without having to cross a street.
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THE WOLVES OF WALL STREET
Wall Street’s performance is at its peak, and the AI boom is the driving factor. Global investment banking revenue reached US$61.4 billion in the first six months of 2026, an increase of 24 per cent. The fees charged by the six largest US banks rose by 45 per cent in the second quarter. Global M&A has now surpassed US$3 trillion this year, representing an increase of over 40 per cent, and companies have raised a record US$251 billion through IPOs, with SpaceX’s US$85.7 billion listing leading the way. Venture capital activity accelerated similarly: in June 2026 alone, there was nearly US$1.4 billion worth of Series A funding in New York, more than triple what was seen in the same month last year. The next component of this boom is the law firm sector. In 2025, the 100 leading law firms together generated revenue of US$178.95 billion, a 13 per cent increase, with revenue per lawyer rising by 8.7 per cent. Sixty-two firms achieved revenues of over US$1 billion, an increase from fifty-eight the previous year, and Kirkland & Ellis alone recorded US$10.556 billion. In this year’s law firm leadership survey, banking and finance have become the fastest-growing area, and firms have made about 580 lateral partner appointments in transactional practice, a number that exceeds the total of those going into litigation and technology. Recruiters are calling it a corporate tsunami. The growth is directly linked to AI-driven dealmaking and financing for data centres and even to the city’s AI-native legal startups, founded by lawyers who left Big Law, which are now raising their own venture funds. Banking, venture capital and law are no longer three separate industries; they have merged into a single pipeline, all funding the same boom and increasingly being based in the same buildings as their clients.
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BUSINESS IN NEW YORK
HOW THIS AFFECTS BUSINESS TRAVEL
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The nature of business travel has changed as predicted. Worldwide business travel spending is expected to reach US$1.62 trillion by the end of 2026, setting a new record and representing an 8.1 per cent increase. Corporate travel budgets are also increasing by 5 per cent worldwide, and 61 per cent of travel managers currently say they are optimistic, compared with half that number a few months ago. The value of bleisure, which combines work trips with leisure, is now about US$962 billion globally, up from US$816 billion the previous year. Eighty-nine per cent of business travellers indicate that they would like to lengthen their next work trip, and Marriott Hotels finds that its business guests are now staying 20 per cent longer than they did before. Among Gen Z travellers, 59 per cent say they choose employers in part because of the bleisure flexibility they offer. New York, with all its facets, is within walking distance and designed for exactly that kind of extended stay.
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BUSINESS IN NEW YORK
SIX ADDRESSES FOR THE BUSINESS TRAVELLER There is no dearth of good hospitality in New York. But it does lack hotels that understand what a business traveller actually needs. In my opinion, these six get it right, blending serious meeting infrastructure with the kind of address that impresses a client without saying a word.
Start on Billionaires’ Row, where the FOUR SEASONS HOTEL NEW YORK, 57th Street, reopened in November 2024 after a five-year closure. The I.M. Pei tower sits steps from Fifth Avenue and Rockefeller Plaza, its grand lobby topped by a 33-foot glass ceiling over honey-toned marble floors. With event space spread across 52 storeys, and Midtown East’s banks and law firms just minutes away on foot, it is built for guests who need to close a deal and still make dinner uptown. A spa enhancement is planned to further round out the wellness offering.
A short walk away on Madison Avenue, LOTTE NEW YORK PALACE wraps its meeting rooms around the 1882 Villard Mansion, which still anchors the property today. The hotel’s several rooms are named after the mansion’s original 19th-century occupants. It sits directly opposite St Patrick’s Cathedral, with Rockefeller Centre within easy walking distance. That layered history gives boardroom conversations a genuine sense of occasion.
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Central Park South holds two very different propositions. The JW MARRIOTT ESSEX HOUSE NEW YORK, an Art Deco landmark standing directly on the park, offers a 24-hour business centre for guests working across time zones. At the same time, its recently renovated Executive Lounge welcomes eligible Marriott Bonvoy elite members, and Bourbon Steak, helmed by chef Michael Mina, anchors the dining programme.
A few doors down at 36 Central Park South, the PARK LANE NEW YORK has just emerged from a twoyear, ground-up renovation by Yabu Pushelberg. Darling, its rooftop bar, remains the only such lounge on Billionaires’ Row, and Rose Lane, an 80-seat lobby bar, opens onto an outdoor promenade below, with Carnegie Hall and MoMA both within easy walking distance. The property suits an executive who values design as much as they do a deal. 22 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
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Closer to the theatre district, THE WESTIN NEW YORK AT TIMES SQUARE has come through a significant multimillion-dollar renovation of its meeting infrastructure, now offering large amounts of flexible event space anchored by three ballrooms suited to conferences of varying scale, with Times Square keeping guests close to Midtown’s theatre and retail core.
And for a sense of history that no renovation can manufacture, there is the INTERCONTINENTAL NEW YORK BARCLAY, which opened in November 1926 as part of Grand Central Terminal’s expansion and once featured a private rail platform for guests arriving by private railcar. The hotel marks its centennial in November 2026, closing out a three-year countdown, and Club InterContinental operates as a genuine working lounge rather than a tourist add-on. Ernest Hemingway once stayed here while finishing revisions on his novel.
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BUSINESS IN NEW YORK
WHERE TO GRAB A DRINK AFTERWARDS IF YOU’RE STAYING THE WEEKEND Buco al Mare serves Italian food along the coast, ideal for a relaxed dinner. Fresno offers seasonal American cooking with a Mediterranean lean. Duryea’s remains the address for a classic lobster roll lunch. Moby’s serves contemporary Italian food in a garden setting. East Hampton Grill delivers a dependable steak when you want something simple.
PEBBLE BAR: This century-old Rockefeller Centre townhouse was reimagined in 2022. It spans four floors, with a private lounge tucked away on the top level. Ask for the Green River.
MAISON PREMIERE: This Williamsburg homage to old New Orleans holds the country’s largest absinthe list. A working absinthe fountain still operates behind the bar. The Old King Cole Martini arrives mixed tableside with caviar.
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BEMELMANS BAR, THE CARLYLE, A ROSEWOOD HOTEL: Opened in 1947, this bar still carries Ludwig Bemelmans’ original murals on its walls. A pianist performs nightly from five thirty onward. Servers continue to serve in white jackets, unchanged for decades. Order the Bobby’s Manhattan.
THE PORTRAIT BAR: Dark wood panelling and a working fireplace set the mood here. Fifty travelthemed portraits line the walls throughout. Order the Cebu Island, clarified with a faint savoury edge.
OVERSTORY: Perched on the 64th floor of 70 Pine Street, this twentyfour-seat bar wraps around a terrace with 360-degree views. Snacks arrive from Saga, the two-Michelin-starred restaurant downstairs. Order the Terroir Old Fashioned.
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WELLNESS
ARTof UNDOING At Layan Life by Anantara in Phuket, a five-day programme of medical treatments, traditional therapies and excellent food offers a more complicated proposition than simply learning to relax Words by ESHA APHALE
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WELLNESS RIGHT: Aerial view of Anantara Layan Phuket Resort
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few weeks before I arrived at Layan Life by Anantara, I was sent a wellness questionnaire. It asked about my sleep, diet, stress levels, lifestyle and the various ways in which I might be failing to look after myself. I filled it out with the vague seriousness one reserves for forms that promise to improve your life, then promptly went back to living it. The plan was to spend five days at Anantara Layan Phuket Resort, moving between medical consultations, body treatments, movement classes and meals designed around my needs. I was told the programme would be adjusted as I went along, which sounded sensible, if a little ambitious. Then, for the first three days of my stay, the resort’s wifi stopped working. It was apparently due to maintenance, although I chose to consider it an intervention. I still checked my phone out of habit, experienced small flashes of irritation and wondered what I was missing. But without the option of filling every empty minute with messages, news and the internet’s endless supply of things to be mildly concerned about, I began noticing the birds, the squirrels and the fact that I had not had much coffee at all. Layan Life is a short buggy ride from the main resort, which has its own busy rhythm of restaurants, pools and holiday activity. The wellness building, by contrast, sits around a reflective pond, encircled by thick tropical foliage. It is a double-storey structure of glass, pale timber and soft, neutral tones, designed to look less like a spa than a very beautiful pavilion that has happened to land in the forest. The architecture isn’t clinical: light comes in from every direction, the edges between the interior and the gardens are deliberately blurred, and the whole building seems to be arranged around the idea that nobody should have to strain their eyes. A small Thai shrine sits among the greenery, bright with orange garlands and incense. Beyond it, a cascading water feature leads towards the reception. The effect is not entirely accidental—Layan Life’s 1,767 28 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
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sqm design is intended to bring together nature, medical wellness and traditional Thai healing—but it is pleasing to arrive somewhere that does not immediately resemble a clinic, despite the presence of a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, cryotherapy facilities and enough diagnostic equipment to make you wonder whether your body has been quietly submitting reports without your knowledge. The first afternoon began with wellness and medical consultations, followed by a 30-minute session of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT, intended to help with sleep. The treatment takes place inside a pressurised chamber, where oxygen is delivered at a higher concentration than normal air. The experience itself was remarkably uneventful, which I appreciated. There was no dramatic transformation, no cinematic awakening. I sat inside the chamber and waited, feeling faintly like a passenger on a very slow spaceship.
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The next day began with a wellness talk by Dr A, who spoke about the anxiety created by tracking devices. We have become accustomed to monitoring ourselves through watches, rings and apps: steps taken, hours slept, heart rate, calories burned, stress levels, readiness scores. At some point, the attempt to understand the body can become another way of refusing to listen to it. His advice was simple, and perhaps for that reason more persuasive than a complicated protocol: step away from the constant influx of information and return to the body’s own signals. Eat when you are hungry. Rest when you are tired. Pay attention to what you actually need, rather than what a device tells you that you should need. It was a useful argument, particularly in a wellness centre equipped with machines that can measure almost everything. The Moti Dynamic Postural Analysis session made that awareness considerably more specific. I stood on a mat while a sophisticated scanning system assessed
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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Vitality Pool; Energy Balancing; Layan Life by Anantara
my posture, muscle alignment and problem areas. The results were sent to me almost immediately, accompanied by videos of simple exercises and stretches intended to address the issues identified. Craniosacral therapy moved into more spiritual territory. Dr Kedar spoke about chakras and the relationship between spiritual balance and everyday functioning, recommending grounding practices such as walking barefoot on grass and touching trees. I cannot claim to have emerged with a new understanding of the soul, but I did like the practicality of the suggestion. There was something appealing about being told to touch a tree instead of checking a notification. Each treatment ended with tea and a small wellness cookie, prepared according to the time of day. This became one of the most enjoyable details of the programme. The tea was not presented as a miracle cure, and nobody hurried me towards the next appointment. I began to look forward to the small pause after each treatment, when I could sit, drink something warm and remain briefly unoccupied. The food followed a similar logic: Layan Life’s Food for Life concept, developed by wellness chef Filippo Tawil, works around whole foods, balanced macronutrients and dishes influenced by different wellness traditions, while excluding gluten, dairy and processed sugars. It is the kind of menu that could easily become an exercise in virtuous suffering, but the kitchen makes a credible effort to keep flavour in the picture. I had dinner at Zuma, Anantara’s Japanese restaurant, where the setting and menu offered a welcome change from the earnestness of wellness
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WELLNESS dining. Contemporary izakaya-style dishes, sushi and sashimi made the meal feel like dinner rather than an assignment. At Breeze, the wellness lunch was lighter but not joyless, and breakfast became a daily ritual. I also ate at Dara, the resort’s Thai restaurant, and Age, which focuses on meat, seafood and wine. The restaurants are an important part of the experience: Layan Life may be serious about longevity, but the resort does not require you to spend five days eating as if pleasure were a character flaw. Wednesday’s schedule brought Hatha yoga, a Traditional Thai Medicine consultation, GoY Mod abdominal massage and pain management. Hatha yoga, broadly, is a slower and more physical branch of yoga that combines postures, breathing and concentration. The TTM consultation was more unusual. Based on my date of birth and the day of the week on which I was born, the practitioner assessed the balance of fire, water and wind, then used the findings to suggest a personalised approach to treatment. Traditional Thai Medicine is built around a different understanding of the body from Western medical practice, and Layan Life places it alongside
I became more aware of the ways in which I hurry through a day, how often I ignore small discomforts and how quickly I turn rest into another task to complete
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contemporary diagnostics and technology rather than presenting one system as the answer to everything. The GoY Mod abdominal massage combined oils, hot herbal bags and pressure-point work. The pain-management session later that day used electromagnetic treatment and pressure points. I arrived with muscle pain and left without it, which was particularly welcome because the treatment did not leave me feeling sore, as usual pain management sessions do. There were surprising moments, too. Active light therapy used infrared light, and my skin did appear to have a little more life afterwards. The tea workshop was more personal: we discussed ingredients and created a blend intended to support sleep, using blue pea flower, rose, jasmine, purple lotus flower and khondok. It was a pleasant reminder that not every intervention needs to arrive in the form of a machine, a scan or a chart. In between these therapies, I was asked if I’d like to go zip-lining, an activity that I have always shied away from. But at Anantara, I had resolved to say ‘yes’ to every experience that came my way, which included, walking on a bridge along the foliage and eventually zip-lining through the trees and over the lake. This experience recharged me just as much as all the therapies had – I felt alive and exhilarated. It was a happy welcome from the pace of the treatments, and emphasised on the fact that wellness doesn’t have to be just silent, soft, and slow; wellness can also mean a rush of adrenaline and hanging over a lake, where ducks and turkeys looked up at you.
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LEFT TO RIGHT: Anantara Layan, Phuket Resort; Rooftop Bar; Layan Life by Anantara By the final consultation, the emphasis had shifted from what could be done for me to what I might reasonably continue doing for myself. The team suggested simple practices that could be folded into daily life without requiring specialised equipment, a new identity or a complete rejection of modern society. Layan Life’s wider Life After Layan programme also offers follow-up doctor consultations at one, three and six months, alongside wellness products, supplements and digital newsletters. This, ultimately, was the most convincing part of the stay. Not the promise that five days could resolve my relationship with sleep, stress or my phone, but the recognition that most people cannot maintain a retreat schedule indefinitely. At home, I will have deadlines, messages, traffic and considerably less assistance with deciding when to drink water. I will also, almost certainly, return to coffee. What changed was less dramatic. I became more aware of the ways in which I hurry through a day, how often I ignore small discomforts and how quickly I turn rest into another task to complete. Layan Life’s programme is ambitious, occasionally eccentric and at times almost comically comprehensive. It can measure you, stretch you, scan you, soothe you, illuminate you and offer you tea afterwards. But the most useful thing it gave me was not a new system for managing myself. It was five days in which I did not have to. THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM 33
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DESTINATION INDIA Some of India’s best wedding hotels are getting there by holding back. Others are getting there by building for scale and then learning to divide it. Both rely on mastering the art of making grandeur feel intimate.
Words by MARIA VERGHESE
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HOSPITALITY FROM RIGHT: Mandap at JW Marriott Goa and Banquet Hall at The St Regis Goa
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sk anyone who plans weddings for a living what has changed, and the answer rarely starts with numbers. It starts with attention. Families still want their celebrations to feel enormous in spirit, but the hotels hosting them have split into two schools of thought about how to deliver that. One school, mostly heritage retreats and resorts built around a landscape, has learned restraint. Fewer, sharper moments, built from whatever the setting already gives. The other, mostly city hotels built in the past five years with weddings specifically in mind, has learned the opposite. How to engineer scale itself so that a thousand-guest reception flows the way an airport handles a rush hour rather than collapsing into chaos. Travel between two dozen of India’s most active wedding properties, and both instincts keep resurfacing, often within the same city, sometimes within the same hotel group. Restraint is easiest to see where there was once so much room to fill. Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur has six outdoor venues and four indoor ones, seven hundred seats’ worth of lawn at the Baradari, forty in one of its smaller chambers and used to treat all of it as the brief. Now a wedding there tends to live inside a handful of rooms chosen on purpose: a sangeet under Rathore Hall’s Italian chandeliers and cocktails at Trophy Bar as the sun drops behind Mehrangarh Fort. Six Senses Fort Barwara, a fourteenth-century fort restored over more than a decade and partly powered by its own solar panels and rainwater harvesting, goes further still; its Barwara Royal Ballroom and stepped Banquet Lawn hold a hundred to two hundred guests, with the fort’s own temples and lake doing whatever atmospheric work a bigger room elsewhere might have to fake. Taj Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad, built in 1894 by a Nizam-era prime minister, plays the same restraint at its most theatrical: guests still arrive by horse-drawn carriage past a butler who opens carved palace doors, and the gilded Durbar Hall seats a mere
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HOSPITALITY 120 for a ceremony even as the Main Lawns outside can quietly absorb 1,200 without the palace ever feeling crowded. The instinct isn’t confined to heritage properties, as seen at The Oberoi, New Delhi, a fivestar hotel with no history to lean on beyond its own name, which caps its Grand Ballroom at a deliberate 350 guests and positions it to overlook the Delhi Golf Club rather than compete with it, betting that guest lists who want precision will always outnumber the ones chasing scale. Elsewhere, restraint isn’t a discipline so much as an admission that the setting has already won. At The Oberoi Udaivilas in Udaipur, a shikara gliding across Lake Pichola at dusk needs no further staging, so couples build their weddings around a few such moments rather than compete with the lake for attention. Evolve Back Hampi, four kilometres from a UNESCO World Heritage site, works the same way in reverse: A coracle cruise on the Tungabhadra River or a ceremony timed for the hour its ancient boulders turn gold isn’t an add-on; it’s close to the point of choosing Hampi at all. Taj Kumarakom Resort & Spa, built from a hundred-and-fifty-year-old missionary’s bungalow on Kerala’s backwaters, and The Leela Ashtamudi, A Raviz Hotel further south on Ashtamudi Lake, both let water do the work no ballroom could, vows at the edge of Vembanad Lake at
Kumarakom while a kettuvallam houseboat drifts past for cocktails, or at Ashtamudi a small function space called the Raviz Floating Fort that seats its guests on an actual moored houseboat, perhaps the only venue on this list guests reach by water rather than a driveway. Even a beach hotel can choose this register: JW Marriott Goa keeps its Grande Salao Ballroom and rooftop terrace on Vagator’s cliffs deliberately compact, built for two or three hundred rather than thousands, betting that a view of Chapora Fort does more for a wedding than another zero on the guest count. The St. Regis Goa Resort, spread across fortynine acres where the Sal River meets the Arabian Sea, opens every stay with a signature gong ritual before spreading its own wedding week thin on purpose. A beach ceremony at Mobor, drinks at the Caroline Astor Ballroom, dinner at Miri or Oliveto, a quieter night at Riverside by the water, so no single evening tries to hold the whole week’s energy, while The Westin Goa at Anjuna trades that spectacle for a smaller 9,000 sqf of function space and the hotel-brand consistency guests moving between Marriott properties already recognise. The opposite instinct, building deliberately for scale, shows up hardest in city hotels, and it tends to announce itself through engineering rather than atmosphere. Fairmont Mumbai’s pillarless Infinity
Families still want their celebrations to feel enormous in spirit
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HOSPITALITY Ballroom spans 21,000 sqf and swallows upward of 2000 guests without a single support column breaking the sightline; a 100-tonne ceiling rigging system allows for aerial installations a lesser roof would collapse under, and a dedicated car lift turns a bridal entry into an event in its own right. Sheraton Grand Bengaluru Whitefield & Convention Centre answers with an unobstructed fifty-foot ceiling over sixty-five thousand sqf of convention space, divisible into eighteen rooms and capable of holding two thousand guests under one roof. The Imperial New Delhi does something similar with pedigree instead of steel; its Royal Ballroom needs no lighting rig when a twenty-one-foot Victorian ceiling and a wall-sized oil painting of the Darbar of Malerkotla already do the convincing, while its 10,000 sqf lawn and adjoining garden absorb the rest of the week’s functions outdoors. What almost all of these properties have converged on, though, isn’t raw size but divisibility, the ability to be a two-hundred-guest room on Tuesday and a twothousand-guest room on Saturday without ever feeling like the wrong size for either. Grand Hyatt Mumbai Hotel & Residences pillarless Grand Ballroom, lit naturally on two sides and facing a courtyard waterfall, flexes from one 11,000 sqf hall down to three separate rooms. JW Marriott Hotel Bengaluru pairs a compact 5000 sqf pillarless ballroom with ten thousand sqf of outdoor lawns so ceremony and reception rarely have to share a room, and Conrad Bengaluru repeats the trick around Ulsoor Lake, its Grand Ballroom and smaller foyer-facing halls both angled for water views regardless of guest count. Hyatt Regency Delhi’s Mansion houses the Oval Room, the city’s first event
Wellness, at the properties that take it seriously, has stopped being a spa booking squeezed in before the ceremony and become something closer to infrastructure, folded into the daily rhythm of the week rather than offered as an extra
space built around open show kitchens and prized for the natural light that flatters a morning haldi, alongside Living Rooms and a Regency Ballroom that scales from 250 guests to 600 depending on the day. Even The St. Regis Mumbai, whose Astor Ballroom and its subdivided sections span thirteen event rooms and sixty thousand sqf, leans on this same modularity as much as on its Astor heritage and butler service, and JW Marriott Mumbai Juhu solves the same problem by putting the sea to work instead; its Grand Sangam Ballroom and beachfront lawns look out over the Arabian Sea, so a reception can spill from ballroom to shoreline without ever losing the view. Wellness, at the properties that take it seriously, has stopped being a spa booking squeezed in before the ceremony and become something closer to infrastructure, folded into the daily rhythm of the week rather than offered as an extra. Six Senses Fort Barwara’s hatha yoga pavilion, hydrotherapy circuit, and Ayurvedic treatment rooms sit inside the wedding
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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Venues at JW Marriott Bengaluru; The St Regis Mumbai; and Grand Hyatt Mumbai
schedule as a matter of course; Udaivilas does the same with daily yoga and personalised spa treatments scheduled around each guest’s own pace rather than a group timetable, and Evolve Back Hampi leans on Ayurveda taken at an infinity pool with its boulders as a backdrop. Fairmont Mumbai has pushed the idea furthest into the city, becoming India’s first hotel to offer a Blu Xone wellness space with cryotherapy, an infrared sauna, and a hyperbaric oxygen pod, proof that the instinct travels from backwater resort to airport-adjacent ballroom without losing its logic, even if the vocabulary gets a lot more clinical along the way. Sustainability, similarly, reads most convincingly at the properties where it was never a marketing decision to begin with. Barwara’s restoration and its reforestation work near Ranthambore shaped the fort long before any wedding was booked into it; Hampi barely needs a policy, since a heritage landscape enforces its own restraint and the wedding programming simply declines to compete with
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What guests notice, regardless of which school a hotel belongs to, tends to be the same thing: hospitality that looks like instinct rather than infrastructure boulders that took millennia to settle into their shapes. Kumarakom’s relationship to its lake ecosystem reads as inheritance rather than choice, and even Umaid Bhawan’s version is practical rather than performative with menus built from Rajasthani produce instead of flown in. The city hotels tend to formalise the same instinct rather than inherit it: Sheraton Grand Bengaluru Whitefield & Convention Centre holds EarthCheck Platinum certification, a credential that would look almost bureaucratic beside Barwara’s rainwater harvesting and solar panels but is chasing the same outcome by a different, more auditable route. Technology is where the two schools diverge most visibly, because one hides it and the other puts it on stage. At Umaid Bhawan and at Taj Falaknuma, technology coordinates a multi-day wedding without ever appearing at the ceremony itself; it stays backstage, the way the palace’s own history insists it should. At Fairmont Mumbai, by contrast, the
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hundred-tonne rigging system and the car lift are technology deployed as spectacle, meant to be seen and photographed rather than concealed. The Leela Ambience Gurugram splits the difference: 35,000 sqf of contemporary event space wrapped around a ninehole golf course and a nightly lamp-lighting ritual at dusk, so that even a hotel built for corporate conferences ends up, for one week, feeling like a retreat that happens to have excellent wifi. What guests notice, regardless of which school a hotel belongs to, tends to be the same thing: hospitality that looks like instinct rather than infrastructure. A car arranged before it’s needed and dietary notes remembered without repeating them at Umaid Bhawan; a butler extended to every guest rather than just the couple at properties across the St. Regis and Leela portfolios; a chef at Taj Kumarakom laying out karimeen mappas that no imported menu could replicate, or one at Alila Diwa Goa is running an 18,000 sqf concept space called Udeta with its own live
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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Venues at The Leela Ambience Gurugram; Fairmont Mumbai and Hyatt Regency Delhi
theatre kitchen, so a mehndi, a sangeet, and a reception never have to repeat the same backdrop. The Westin Hyderabad Mindspace, out in the HITEC City tech corridor, makes the case for the opposite virtue entirely: twenty thousand sqf of contemporary event space, six restaurants, and a location guests can reach without leaving the city’s business district, offered up as efficiency rather than atmosphere, and no less a form of hospitality for it. Set side by side, a fourteenth-century Rajasthani fort and a five-year-old convention hotel beside a Bengaluru tech park have almost nothing in common as buildings. What unites the two dozen properties doing this work best is a shared answer to the same design problem: a modern Indian wedding needs somewhere that can hold an intimate mehndi and a thousand-guest reception under one roof, on the same property, without either one feeling like an afterthought. The heritage hotels solve it by asking guests to want less of the building than they’re offered. The city hotels solve it by making sure there’s more building than any single function could exhaust. Between Jodhpur and Bengaluru, Udaipur and Gurugram, and Hampi and Hyderabad, both answers are getting the guests to the same place, a wedding that feels, for a few days, like the property was built for nothing else.
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AVIATION
THE AIRPORT LOUNGE IS HAVING A SECOND CAREER
Words by ESHA APHALE Across India, lounges are becoming less like glorified waiting rooms and more like offices, dining rooms, recovery spaces and, increasingly, part of the business traveller’s working day. 42 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
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or a long time, the airport lounge had a fairly limited function. It offered a place to sit that was marginally more comfortable than the terminal outside, a buffet whose usefulness depended heavily on the time of day, and enough charging points to prevent passengers from having to negotiate with strangers over the last available plug socket. For the business traveller, it was a holding area between the taxi and the aircraft. The contemporary business traveller is harder to contain within the old categories of leisure and work. A person might be answering emails while waiting to board, taking a video call after landing, trying to squeeze in a shower between two meetings or arriving at the airport several hours early because the airport itself has become the most convenient place to work. Business travel has become more fragmented, more self-directed and, in some cases, less dependent on the conventional office altogether. Indian airport lounges are responding accordingly. The shift is visible in the growth of dedicated workspaces, business centres, sleeping rooms, showers, wellness facilities, app-based booking and increasingly differentiated levels of access. The lounge is no longer simply competing with the departure gate seating area. It is competing with a hotel lobby, the co-working space and, occasionally, the office. At Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, Encalm Hospitality has perhaps taken the broadest view of what airport hospitality can include. Its network extends beyond the conventional departure lounge into meet-and-assist services, premium lounges, business facilities and transit accommodation. Encalm’s regular lounges across Delhi offer the expected architecture of modern airport comfort: wifi, food and beverage service, charging facilities, flight information and dedicated seating areas. But its premium product, Encalm Privé, points more clearly towards where the category is headed. At Delhi Airport, the Privé lounges include a business centre, library, gym, gaming zone, nap rooms, shower facilities, wellness services and private dining, alongside the standard buffet-and-bar proposition. There is something revealing about that list. The business traveller of the lounge industry’s imagination is no longer assumed to be a man in a suit who needs a newspaper and a whisky. They
may need to print a document. They may need to sleep for 40 minutes. They may want to exercise before a long-haul flight or take a meeting without conducting it over the sound of a boarding announcement. Encalm has also separated the act of working from the act of lounging altogether. Its Business Centre near Terminal 3 offers workstations, boardrooms, high-speed wifi, printing, scanning and audio-visual equipment, allowing travellers to hold meetings or work between flights. Its Transit by Encalm accommodation adds short-stay rooms and high-speed wifi to the airport equation. The result is closer to an ecosystem than a single lounge. The airport is being treated as a place where a traveller might spend several productive hours, rather than somewhere to endure until a flight number changes from “boarding soon” to “gate closed”. Bengaluru has approached the question differently, and perhaps more characteristically. Kempegowda International Airport’s 080 Lounge, named after Bengaluru’s telephone code, has been developed around the airport’s identity as an extension of the city. The lounges incorporate local cultural references, art, flora and regional design cues, a deliberate departure from the international airport aesthetic that can make Mumbai, Munich and Muscat feel as though they have all been furnished by the same committee. The 080 Lounge at Terminal 2 is a particularly useful example of how lounge design is adapting to different types of traveller. The international lounge has space for more than 500 passengers and offers highspeed wifi, charging stations, showers, food and beverage service and different zones intended for different passenger needs. Its wider 080 ecosystem also includes spaces for reading, spa services and, through the adjacent 080 Transit Hotel, short-stay accommodation for passengers with longer layovers. The 080 brand sits within Bengaluru Airport’s hospitality infrastructure, while Travel Food Services operates the 080 lounges. That distinction is worth noting because airport lounges are increasingly becoming complicated collaborations between airport operators,
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specialist hospitality companies, food and beverage groups, airlines and financial institutions. The passenger experiences a single space. Behind the scenes, it may be a small corporate ecosystem. This fragmentation is not necessarily a bad thing. It has allowed airport operators to become more specific about what a lounge is for. At Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, for example, the current lounge landscape has become distinctly segmented. The airport lists business-class and loyalty lounges alongside independently operated spaces such as the Travel Club Lounge and Aviserv lounges. The Adani Lounge-Loyalty and businessclass lounges at Terminal 2 include business centre services and wifi, while the international Adani Lounge-Loyalty adds shower facilities and a complimentary foot massage, subject to availability. This is the airport lounge as a menu of possibilities rather than a single premium room. Some passengers want a place to eat before boarding. Others want to answer 30 emails. Some need a shower after arriving from London before heading directly into a meeting in Lower Parel. The more useful lounge is increasingly the one that recognises these differences. The same thinking is visible at Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, managed within Adani Airport Holdings’ network. The airport currently offers separate domestic and international lounge options, including the Adani Lounge for business-class, Pranaam Elite and walkin customers, and The Lounge for international departures. Both offer wifi, food and beverage service and flight information, while access can be booked through the airport’s digital ecosystem. Ahmedabad is useful because it shows that the evolution of the lounge is not confined to the country’s largest aviation hubs. The business traveller flying regularly between Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru is likely to expect the same basic infrastructure wherever they go: reliable wifi, food that does not require leaving the 46 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
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The airport is, in other words, becoming more like a small city, and the lounge is acquiring different neighbourhoods
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AVIATION Encalm Privé at Delhi offers a more exclusive set of facilities than the company’s conventional lounges. Mumbai has separate business and loyalty products. Bengaluru’s airport ecosystem extends from the 080 Lounge to the 080 Transit Hotel. Ahmedabad’s lounges sit alongside Pranaam meet-and-greet services and digital booking. The airport is, in other words, becoming more like a small city, and the lounge is acquiring different neighbourhoods. For the business traveller, this is a significant change. The airport was once the dead zone in the working day, the inconvenient stretch between the office and wherever work was happening next. Now it can be used to finish a presentation, take a call, shower, eat, sleep or, with sufficient planning and access, conduct an actual meeting. There are limits, of course. No amount of good lighting or locally sourced snacks can entirely erase the strange anxiety of air travel. A lounge can give you a private booth, but it cannot guarantee that the person next to you will not conduct a quarterly sales review on speakerphone. Still, the direction is clear. The most interesting lounges in India are moving away from the idea that luxury is simply about insulation. The old model offered separation from the crowds. The newer one is increasingly about usefulness. A good lounge now has to understand that travellers may want to work, recover, eat well or simply disappear for an hour. That is a more complicated brief than providing comfortable chairs and an unlimited buffet. It is also a better one. As business travel becomes less predictable and the boundaries between working time and travel time continue to blur, airport lounges are adapting to a passenger who expects the hours between destinations to count for something. The new lounge is still a place to wait. It is just no longer waiting to become somewhere else.
ISTOCK
lounge, a decent place to sit and the possibility of getting some work done before boarding. Adani Airport Holdings has publicly identified lounges, business centres and differentiated corporate services as part of its broader passenger experience strategy, including spaces designed around different categories of travellers and the possibility of express check-in and meet-and-greet services. Its digital strategy has also moved further into the airport experience, with the Adani One ecosystem making lounge access and other airport services increasingly bookable through a single platform. Then there is Hyderabad, where Encalm operates both domestic and international lounges at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. The offering includes food and beverage service, wifi, lounge seating and flight information, alongside Encalm’s broader Atithya meet-and-assist service. Hyderabad matters because it represents the other side of the trend. The airport lounge does not necessarily need to become a miniature wellness resort to be useful. For a traveller on a short domestic hop, the more relevant upgrade may simply be a reliable place to work, eat and charge devices without fighting for space in an increasingly crowded terminal. This is perhaps the central tension facing lounges in India. Access has become more democratic, partly through credit cards, loyalty programmes and paid entry. That has expanded the market considerably, but it has also created the problem of the crowded lounge, where the premium experience can begin to resemble the terminal it was designed to escape. The response has been segmentation. There are standard lounges, airline lounges, premium lounges, business-class lounges, loyalty lounges, arrival lounges and now spaces that function almost as short-stay hotels.
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For a long time, art in Indian hotels followed a familiar script. There might be a large canvas behind the reception desk, a strategically placed sculpture in the lobby or framed works selected to soften an otherwise expensive interior. Art was there to establish atmosphere, to suggest taste, and occasionally to fill a difficult wall. A different approach is beginning to take shape. Across India, a small but increasingly interesting group of hotels is treating art less as decoration and more as a reason for the hotel to exist. The result is a hybrid space: part place to sleep, part private collection, part cultural salon. Guests encounter work in corridors, bedrooms, courtyards and dining rooms, often without the etiquette of a white-walled gallery telling them where to stand or how long to look. In Jaipur, the recently opened Abode property brings this sensibility into the city’s walled heart. The hotel, housed in a restored historic haveli, has the slightly pleasurable density of a family home assembled over generations. Local art appears throughout, from clay works by Vandita Vijayvargiya of Clay Country on the first floor to photography by Bharat Singh of Jaipur Houses in the dining area. Pocket-square-inspired artworks by House of Badnore appear in the suites, while works by Tarini of Cobalt Company add a contemporary counterpoint in the lobby. The published material identifies the artists and where their works appear, although individual titles From restored havelis to heritage mansions and mountain have not been publicly listed. The effect is less about presenting retreats, a growing number of hotels are treating art as a collection part inofone designated room than allowing the experience, inviting guests to live among it contemporary work to enter rhythm of a stay: breakfast, a rather the than merely pass by walk upstairs, and an afternoon spent in the library. Words by ESHA APHALE The relationship with artists extends beyond the works already ABODE BOMBAY
Checking into a Gallery
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ABODE JAIPUR
For a long time, art in Indian hotels followed a familiar script. There might be a large canvas behind the reception desk, a strategically placed sculpture in the lobby or framed works selected to soften an otherwise expensive interior. Art was there to establish atmosphere, to suggest taste, and occasionally to fill a difficult wall. A different approach is beginning to take shape. Across India, a small but increasingly interesting group of hotels is treating art less as decoration and more as a reason for the hotel to exist. The result is a hybrid space: part place to sleep, part private collection, part cultural salon. Guests encounter work in corridors, bedrooms, courtyards and dining rooms, often without the etiquette of a white-walled gallery telling them where to stand or how long to look. In Jaipur, the recently opened Abode property brings this sensibility into the city’s walled heart. The hotel, housed in a restored historic haveli, has the slightly pleasurable density of a family home assembled over generations. Local art appears throughout, from clay works by Vandita Vijayvargiya of Clay Country on the first floor to photography by Bharat Singh of Jaipur Houses in the dining area. Pocket-square-inspired artworks by House of Badnore appear in the suites, while works by Tarini of Cobalt Company add a contemporary counterpoint in the lobby. The published material identifies the artists and where their works appear, although individual titles have not been publicly listed. The effect is less about presenting a collection in one designated room than allowing contemporary work to enter the rhythm of a stay: breakfast, a walk upstairs, and an afternoon spent in the library. The relationship with artists extends beyond the works already or a long time, art in Indian hotels followed a familiar script: there might be a large canvas behind the reception desk, a strategically placed sculpture in the lobby or framed works selected to soften an otherwise expensive interior. Art was there to establish atmosphere, to suggest taste, and occasionally to fill an empty wall. A different approach is beginning to take shape. Across India, a small but increasingly interesting group of hotels is treating art less as decoration and more as a reason for the hotel to exist. The result is a hybrid space: part place to sleep, part private collection, part cultural salon. Guests encounter artworks in corridors, bedrooms, courtyards and dining rooms, often without the etiquette of a white-walled gallery telling them where to stand or how long to look. In Jaipur, the recently opened Abode property brings this sensibility into the city’s walled heart. The hotel, housed in a restored historic haveli, has
OCTOBER 2026
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BOUTIQUE HOTELS
the slightly pleasurable density of a family home assembled over generations. Local art appears throughout, from clay works by Vandita Vijayvargiya of Clay Country on the first floor to photography by Bharat Singh of Jaipur Houses in the dining area. Pocket-square-inspired artworks by House of Badnore appear in the suites, while works by Tarini of Cobalt Company add a contemporary counterpoint in the lobby. The published material identifies the artists and where their works appear, although individual titles have not been publicly listed. The effect is less about presenting a collection in one designated room than allowing contemporary work to enter the rhythm of a stay: breakfast, a walk upstairs, and an afternoon spent in the library. The relationship with artists extends beyond the works already hanging on the walls. In 2026, Abode Jaipur and Abode Bombay became accommodation partners for FAACII’s inaugural artist residency in India, a five-week programme bringing two artists through both cities. The residency begins with three weeks at Abode Bombay in Colaba before moving to Abode Jaipur for two weeks. In this sense, the hotels are becoming part of the infrastructure around artistic production, rather than simply places where finished work eventually ends up on display. Its sister property, Abode Bombay, takes a related but more urban approach. Set in a restored Art Deco building in Colaba, the 25-room hotel combines vintage furniture, artworks and objects that sit comfortably within the city’s Mumbai’s coastline, with the works appearing on the fourth floor dense visual history. Among its documented and elsewhere across the property. collaborations are works created specifically for the Kochi, with its close relationship to contemporary art through hotel by Mumbai artist Sidhant Gandhi, known as the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, has been a particularly fertile ground Too Sid. A collection associated with the hotel, A for this shift. The Malabar House, in Fort Kochi, has long Day At Sea, draws on the emotions and sights of described itself as an art hotel, with a thoughtfully curated collection intended to reflect Kerala’s position as a meeting point between East and West. The hotel’s collection includes paintings and sculptures distributed throughout the property, and its art programme has been described as giving guests an encounter with the work before they necessarily encounter the name of its maker. There is evidence that works by the celebrated Kerala artist Namboodiri have held a prominent place at The Malabar House. Hotel collections change, and a story about art is a particularly bad place to let a caption become a fact. Its approach feels rooted in the idea that heritage need not be preserved under glass. A few streets away in Mattancherry, The Postcard Mandalay Hall pushes the concept further. The five-room property occupies a historic building on Synagogue Lane, and its rooms are called galleries. The art programme has been curated by Bose Krishnamachari, co-founder of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. This is where the distinction between hotel and gallery begins to blur in more interesting ways. At Mandalay Hall, art does not wait downstairs while the guest goes to bed. Gallery 1 features the work of Sushanta Maharana. Gallery 2 contains works by Anju Acharya, including The Little Bumps and Nudges, Pricks and Pinches and Mother and Child, a group of works exploring pregnancy and motherhood. Gallery 3 is centred on Dibin Thilakan’s Ode to Home, a series across different media examining the idea of home. Gallery 4 features Gopal Samantray, whose works explore the uneasy border between cities and forests, homes and wilderness, while Gallery 5 contains works by the Italian artist ABODE BOMBAY
Across India, a small but increasingly interesting group of hotels is treating art less as decoration and more as a reason for the hotel to exist
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TREE OF LIFE EILA ART HOTEL IN NAGGAR
THE POSTCARD MANDALAY HALL
THE POSTCARD MANDALAY HALL
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Giuseppe Stampone, recognisable for his drawings made with blue and black BIC pens. The hotel has also documented works by Jigesh Kumar as part of its art programme. A guest is therefore asked to inhabit the space around an artwork for hours rather than the few minutes generally allotted to it in a museum. At the other end of the country, Tree of Life Eila Art Hotel in Naggar, near Manali, approaches the relationship between art and hospitality through landscape. Here, the setting itself already arrives with a formidable visual vocabulary: deodar forests, the Beas River below and the Dhauladhar range in the distance. The hotel is built around an explicitly art-led concept and includes the Nainsukh Art Gallery, which the property describes as housing a collection of paintings and sculptures. Eila’s connection to art is particularly tied to Naggar’s association with the Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, whose presence in the region helped establish the town as an important artistic centre. The hotel’s own identity is shaped by this history and by the relationship between art, earth and landscape. One of the property’s documented installations is Ek Pao Zameen, a collection of soils from sites considered to have particular spiritual or cultural importance, conceived around the idea that culture begins with the earth beneath it. Another artistic element, the hotel’s entrance installation known as the Gate of Confluence, draws on inscriptions and the visual language of Buddhist monasteries in Himachal Pradesh. These are site-specific interventions rather than conventional paintings hung against a wall, which feels appropriate for a property where the architecture itself is part of the artistic experience.
At ITC Maurya in Delhi, art and craft are embedded into the scale and symbolism of the property. The most immediately recognisable work is Krishen Khanna’s monumental mural The Great Procession, which covers the hotel’s domed lobby ceiling. The lobby is also surrounded by 18 painted glass panels by M.F. Husain, depicting key episodes from the Mauryan era. While the individual panels are not consistently published with separate titles, their artist, number, location and subject matter are documented. The experience is very different from a five-room boutique hotel in Mattancherry, yet it belongs to the same broader impulse: hospitality as a site for cultural encounter. What makes this moment particularly interesting is that these hotels are not trying to become conventional museums. A gallery demands attention; a hotel competes with sleep, conversation, room service and the desire to do absolutely nothing. That tension can make the encounter with art more intimate. A painting noticed on the way to breakfast may mean something different the third time a guest passes it. Art can become another luxury signifier, deployed to make a property appear culturally literate while remaining disconnected from artists and local creative communities. The more persuasive examples avoid that trap by treating curation as an ongoing practice rather than an expensive finishing touch. For the guest, this creates a different kind of luxury: the luxury of staying somewhere with a point of view. And for Indian hospitality, it suggests that the future of the hotel may have less to do with how many objects it can display than with how meaningfully those objects are allowed to live there.
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In 2026, heritage hotels are no longer just a stopover between meetings or museum visits. Globally, these storied properties are turning into cultural hubs. They host artist residencies, commission new work and stage performances that leave a lasting impression. For business travellers who once treated legacy hotels as a beautiful backdrop, this shift is reshaping the experience itself. Business and leisure travellers alike want memorable stories, not just service, and hotel owners have taken note. A resident artist or a rotating exhibition gives guests a reason to return outside conference season. It also gives PR teams something to talk about besides thread counts. Industry watchers have flagged this shift squarely. The most sophisticated hospitality properties now run artist residencies, rotating exhibitions and cultural programming built around their collections. This positions hotels as cultural anchors, not passive art collectors, making it a meaningful pivot. Owning art used to signal status; now it signals infrastructure.
Words by AKANKSHA MAKER
HERITAGE HOTELS AS
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How heritage hotels are becoming cultural hubs through artist residencies, art commissions and live performances, from Belmond and Raffles to Rambagh Palace and the Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai.
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BELMOND: BUILDING A CREATIVE UNIVERSE AROUND ITS ICONS Belmond may be leading the way in treating its properties as active cultural projects rather than static heritage assets. The LVMH-owned group entered 2026 with plans to reimagine its global heritage icons. Leading creative talents will reinterpret them while honouring regional cultures. This is more than decoration. It is deliberate positioning. The group runs its Mitico programme with Galleria Continua. Each edition invites one artist to create new site-specific works across several Belmond properties. The initiative set out to animate the brand’s hotels with contemporary art rooted in place. Gallery co-founder Lorenzo Fiaschi frames the mission as bringing beauty into everyday travel. Belmond has also expanded into photography. It runs residencies where emerging photographers document their personal experience of a property and its region. They meet locals, explore local food and discover nature along the way.
OCTOBER 2026
Belmond has taken its cultural programme to the art fair circuit too. The group presented at ART SG in Singapore for the first time in January 2026. It showcased original commissioned artworks alongside its photographic publishing collections. Belmond described its exhibition space as proof that cultural storytelling should stay rooted in lived experience. When a hotel group shows up at an art fair to sell storytelling, not room nights, it signals where the category is heading.
LEFT AND RIGHT: The Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai; La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel, Mallorca and the LOEWE FOUNDATION hosted an artist residency
Business and leisure travellers alike want memorable stories, not just service, and hotel owners have taken note THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM 53
BOUTIQUE HOTELS
RAFFLES: HERITAGE AS LIVING ARCHIVE Raffles takes a different approach, making heritage itself the cultural offering. Its properties run resident historian tours, curator-led art walks and craft workshops. These turn the hotel’s own past into daily programming. At Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor in Siem Reap, the hotel displays Khmer artworks by its resident artists throughout the historic mansion. An on-site art curator leads complimentary exhibition tours, and guests can buy any piece on display. Raffles Europejski Warsaw takes this idea furthest among the group’s properties. It houses the world’s foremost collection of modern Polish art, displayed as a living gallery. The hotel also runs a patisserie that once welcomed Chopin and other cultural luminaries. The hotel is not simply near the city’s cultural scene. It is written into it.
Heritage hotels are converting static assets, such as old buildings, inherited art and regional craft networks, into recurring revenue and recurring headlines ROSEWOOD: SENSE OF PLACE AS STRATEGY Rosewood has built its entire design language around locally rooted art. It now formalises that approach into residency programmes rather than one-off installations. Across its 42 properties, Trish Luyckx, the group’s chief design and project services officer, describes its hotels as a platform. Local artists, artisans and
BELOW: Raffles Europejski Warsaw
craftsmen use that platform to share their work and express each destination’s character. Live performance is entering the mix as well. Rosewood Bermuda’s Broadway to Bermuda programme brings Broadway performers to the island. Rather than staging isolated shows, it builds curated, multi-day residencies in intimate settings across the resort. The format aims to create genuine exchange between artists, guests and the destination. In effect, this applies the museum residency model to hospitality. THE INDIA STORY: PALACES THAT NEVER STOPPED BEING CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS India’s heritage hotels may have invented this playbook decades before the term “cultural hub” existed. The Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai has quietly built one of the country’s most significant hotel art collections. It holds works by V.S. Gaitonde, Ram Kumar and Jehangir Sabavala. The collection also includes a Laxman Shreshtha commission, created with the late Ratan Tata. Over the decades, the hotel has hosted artists including Amrita Sher-Gil and M.F. Husain. Resident guests can join curated heritage tours three times daily. IHCL has formalised this instinct into a group-wide calendar. Its HeritEdge Celebration marks World Heritage Day with region-specific programming. The programming ranges widely. It spans a lost-recipes culinary class at Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur; heritage walks through Goa’s historic churches; and cultural heritage sessions at Rambagh Palace, Jaipur. Palaces once built for royalty now curate experiences for guests who want the same access, minus the coronation. Taj Lake Palace goes further still. It sends guests into the surrounding region rather than keeping culture confined to hotel walls. Its Molela terracotta itinerary takes guests to the village renowned for the craft. A guided tour introduces devotional plaques and murals, which local artisans make from river mud and clay. As a result, the hotel becomes a gateway to a living craft economy, not just a viewing room for it.
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SPOTLIGHT ON
Thailand’s Next Chapter with India Pattaraanong Na Chiangmai gives her thoughts on the blooming relationship between the two countries. Thailand’s relationship with the Indian traveller has changed shape. It’s no longer just about beaches and budget breaks. Today, it runs through boardrooms, wellness retreats and destination weddings, reaching well beyond Bangkok and Phuket. At the centre of that shift sits Pattaraanong Na Chiangmai, Deputy Governor for International Marketing, Asia and South Pacific, at the Tourism Authority of Thailand. With over three decades inside TAT, she has watched the country’s tourism strategy evolve first-hand, holding postings from Chiang Rai to Moscow to Tokyo before taking on her current role. Business Travel Magazine India spoke to her about visa policy, MICE tourism, the wellness boom and TAT’s 2027 roadmap, “The Year of Transformation.” Here is where Thailand’s Indian market strategy stands, in her own words.
Q& A Deputy Governor for International Marketing, Asia and South Pacific, at the Tourism Authority of Thailand
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PHANG NGA
SPOTLIGHT ON
How has Thailand’s tourism strategy evolved to specifically target the Indian business and bleisure traveller?
Over the past decade, Thailand’s tourism strategy has shifted from being purely volume-driven to prioritising value, sustainability and a wider distribution of benefits. In 2025, Thailand welcomed approximately 32.9 million international visitors, including 2,487,319 travellers from India, who generated approximately THB 93.06 billion in tourism revenue. This makes India one of our most important markets. For the Indian market, our priority segments include MICE, corporate incentives, weddings, luxury leisure, sports, and health and wellness. We also see strong potential in bleisure travel. Our latest visitor survey found that 2.84 per cent of Indian visitors combined work and leisure, while 72.43 per cent travelled independently, giving them flexibility to extend a business trip. Thailand sits just three to four hours from many major Indian cities. As of August 2026, there were 285 flights and 58,263 seats per week between India and Thailand. We are therefore working closely with airlines, tour operators and business-event partners to encourage longer stays through wellness, gastronomy, culture and golf.
Beyond Bangkok and Phuket, which emerging destinations is the Tourism Authority actively promoting for 2027?
One of TAT’s key objectives for 2027 is to create new, meaningful travel experiences by connecting major cities with hidden gems across every region of Thailand, highlighting natural, cultural and community-based experiences. Particularly for the Indian market, TAT plans to further develop tourism routes connecting Phuket with high-potential nearby OCTOBER 2026
destinations such as Phang Nga and Krabi. These are short, landand sea-accessible journeys that reinforce our broader Travel Connectivity direction and the ASEAN connectivity framework, and align well with Indian travel preferences, especially among repeat visitors and the MICE segment. We are also strengthening Krabi and Surat Thani as established alternatives to Phuket, and see strong potential in Trat, Phetchaburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan and Chiang Rai, the latter promoted as an extension of a Northern Thailand itinerary from Chiang Mai. Meanwhile, Northeastern festivals such as the Christmas Star Parade in Sakon Nakhon and the Candle Festival in Ubon Ratchathani offer Indian travellers something quite different from the traditional beach-and-city holiday. Through this strategy, we aim to encourage longer stays, distribute tourism income more widely and give Indian travellers fresh reasons to discover Thailand’s cultural and geographical diversity.
What role does MICE tourism play in Thailand’s overall visitor economy right now?
MICE tourism plays a high-value role in our visitor economy. Although it isn’t the largest segment by volume, its economic contribution runs deep, touching hotels, convention centres, restaurants, transport and local suppliers. In fiscal year 2025, international meeting attendees stayed an average of 5.72 days and spent approximately THB 9,987 per person per day, according to TCEB’s MICE statistics. MICE also helps generate demand during weekdays and offpeak periods, while creating opportunities for bleisure travel, as delegates extend their trips to experience Thailand’s culture, gastronomy and wellness offerings. For India, corporate incentives and business events therefore remain central to our “Value with Volume” strategy. THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM 57
KRABI
SPOTLIGHT ON
What advantages does Thailand have over its regional competitors for corporate travel and events business?
Thailand’s main advantage lies in combining strong businessevent infrastructure with an attractive leisure experience within one seamless itinerary. We offer convenient access, with flight times of just three to four hours from major Indian cities and extensive connectivity through Bangkok, Phuket and Krabi. Decades of investment mean our tourism products, services and events infrastructure are well established and meet international standards. We may not always be the lowest-priced destination, but we offer a highly competitive balance of quality, hospitality and diverse experiences. Above all, the kindness and service-minded nature of Thai people remains among our strongest advantages, and Thai operators are increasingly familiar with Indian travellers’ specific cultural preferences and requirements.
What infrastructure or connectivity improvements should Indian travellers expect in the next 12–18 months?
The most visible improvements over the next 12 to 18 months will come from aviation capacity, airport technology and Bangkok’s urban rail network. We are working with airlines to restore suspended services and develop connections from high-potential secondary markets such as Pune, Ahmedabad, Amritsar and Lucknow. Thai airports are also expanding biometric identification, self-check-in and automated bag-drop systems, which should help reduce queues. Regarding visas, the Thai Cabinet has approved a framework granting Indian passport holders a 30-day visa exemption. The announcement was published in the Royal Gazette on 31 August 2026 and takes effect 15 days later, from 15 September 2026. High-speed rail remains a longer-term development, so travellers shouldn’t expect a new service within this period. The nearer-term gains will come from aviation, airport processing and urban rail, 58 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
including the eastern MRT Orange Line extension, scheduled to open in January 2028.
How is Thailand balancing over-tourism concerns in hotspots with growth ambitions in emerging regions?
We are moving from a volume-led strategy towards “Value with Volume”, where success is measured not only by visitor numbers but also by expenditure, length of stay, visitor satisfaction and community benefit. In established destinations like Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai, the focus is on better visitor management, higher service standards and spreading demand across different seasons and days of the week. At the same time, we are developing routes that connect major destinations with emerging areas such as Krabi, Phang Nga, Surat Thani and Chiang Rai, supported by roadshows and trade meets that help Indian travel companies sell these destinations. This approach lets Thailand keep growing while giving repeat travellers fresh reasons to return, without placing all future demand on the same places.
What’s driving the wellness and medical tourism segment, and how big a share is it of overall visitor spend?
The segment is being driven by greater health awareness, ageing populations, rising middle and upper-income groups, and growing demand for preventive care and personalised wellness experiences. Thailand’s advantage lies in combining internationally experienced medical services with Thai hospitality, spas and traditional therapies, an idea reflected in our communication concept, “Healing is the New Luxury.” Globally, wellness tourism expenditure reached approximately US$893.9 billion in 2024. Notably, wellness trips made up just 7.8 per cent of all tourism trips but accounted for 18.7 per cent of total tourism expenditure, showing the segment’s high spending potential. For India specifically, we estimate a potential Health O C T OBER 2 0 2 6
SPOTLIGHT ON Weddings, which brought planners and industry stakeholders together to strengthen Thailand’s positioning as a preferred destination-wedding hub. That said, visa policy isn’t the only factor shaping travel. Geopolitical tension in the Middle East can create volatility in oil prices, pushing up airline costs and making travellers more pricesensitive, something visa-free entry helps offset by lowering the overall cost of the trip.
CHIANG MAI
What are the top three misconceptions Indian travellers still have about Thailand as a business or MICE destination?
Sustainability is becoming a central part of Thailand’s tourism strategy rather than a separate marketing theme. It supports our shift towards valueled growth, better destination management and greater benefits for local communities
The first misconception is that Thailand is mainly a leisure, beach or nightlife destination. In reality, we have a well-developed business-events ecosystem, including convention centres, international hotels and experienced destination-management companies, alongside a diverse range of products, from community-based cultural experiences to ultra-luxury dining along Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River. The second is that MICE opportunities are limited to Bangkok. While Bangkok remains the principal gateway, Pattaya offers large venues, Phuket and Krabi suit beachfront incentives, Chiang Mai combines meetings with culture and craftsmanship, and Khon Kaen is emerging as a regional centre for academic and medical events. The third is that Thailand is primarily a budget destination. Value doesn’t simply mean inexpensive; we can accommodate every level of corporate travel, from practical meeting packages to private villas, Michelin-recognised dining and exclusive cultural performances. Our real challenge isn’t just building awareness, but broadening perceptions of the quality and customisation we can genuinely deliver.
Where does sustainability fit into Thailand’s tourism roadmap, and are there any concrete targets?
and Wellness market of approximately 104 million people, of whom around 7.4 million are considered ready to travel. Our latest survey also found that 61.78 per cent of Indian visitors already participated in massage and spa activities during their trip.
Sustainability is becoming central to our tourism strategy rather than a separate marketing theme. Thailand’s Sustainable Tourism Goals align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, sharing a direction towards 2030. In 2025, TAT and 20 public- and private-sector partners committed to cooperation on emissions reduction, resource efficiency and local participation, backed by mechanisms like the STGs STAR rating system and the Carbon Footprint Hotels platform. Responsible-tourism practices aren’t yet a primary factor for many Indian visitors, who tend to prioritise price, convenience and available activities. So we’re encouraging responsible travel from the supply side, working with hotels and operators who demonstrate sustainable practices, while gradually raising awareness among travellers, organisers and corporate buyers alike.
How has visa policy impacted arrival numbers and traveller profile since it was introduced?
What’s the single trend you’re most excited about for Thai tourism heading into 2027?
Visa-free entry has had a significant positive impact, reducing cost, uncertainty and planning time for Indian travellers. The initial exemption, introduced in November 2023, was followed by a broader 60-day scheme in July 2024. Indian arrivals subsequently grew from 1,628,542 in 2023 to 2,129,149 in 2024, a rise of 30.74 per cent, before reaching 2,487,319 in 2025, up 16.82 per cent and well above the 1,961,069 arrivals recorded in 2019. The policy has also supported more flexible travel: 72.43 per cent of Indian visitors now travel independently, while 34.08 per cent are repeat visitors. It’s proving especially valuable for MICE and destination-wedding groups, since removing individual visa applications cuts administrative work and uncertainty for organisers handling hundreds of delegates or guests. This momentum was reinforced by a recent Trade Meet on Indian OCTOBER 2026
I’m most excited about the growing convergence of business, leisure and personal well-being within a single journey. Indian travellers are becoming more independent and experience-driven, increasingly blending wellness, gastronomy, culture and golf into business and celebration trips, creating demand for more personalised, meaningful experiences. This aligns closely with TAT’s 2027 plan, “The Year of Transformation,” built on four shifts: from volume to value, from selling destinations to creating meaningful experiences, from a tourism economy to a life economy, and from working separately to transforming together across the whole tourism ecosystem. Heading into 2027, I believe this shift toward more meaningful, high-value, experience-led travel will be one of the strongest drivers of Thailand’s relationship with the Indian market. THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM 59
AI & TECH
T
here was a moment, not so long ago, when a hotel chatbot felt like progress. It could answer questions about checkout times, it could point you towards the gym. That moment has passed. AI and agentic technology reshape the hotel guest experience now in ways that make those early chatbots look almost rudimentary, handing over decisions that once required a phone call, a booking site, or a conversation at the front desk. The phrase “AI-enabled” has done a great deal of work for hotel marketing teams over the past few years, often more than the underlying technology warranted. One frustration surfaces repeatedly among industry analysts: revenue management systems that have existed for two decades suddenly rebrand themselves as AI-powered without any real technical change behind the label. What’s shifted in 2026 isn’t the vocabulary; it’s the substance. Hotels are no longer bolting chat windows onto old systems. They’re building infrastructure that lets an algorithm plan a trip, choose a room and complete a booking, all without a guest lifting more than a thumb.
AUTHENTIC INTELLIGENCE AI and agentic technology reshape hotel guest experience as major chains shift from simple chatbots towards systems that book, plan and personalise a guest’s entire stay.
UNSPLASH
Words by ESHA APHALE
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HILTON BETS ON A PLANNER BUILT WITH CLAUDE Hilton offers one of the clearest test cases. In March 2026, the company rolled out the Hilton AI Planner to every visitor on their website, following a period of beta testing. Built using Anthropic’s technology, the tool moves well past scripted responses. Michael Leidinger, Hilton’s SVP and CIO, described the launch as “another step forward in our journey to reimagine the travel experience for Hilton guests,” calling it “a preview of where we’re going.” PhocusWire’s coverage of the launch captured what makes the tool different from earlier concierge attempts: a guest opening the Hilton app to plan a Chicago conference trip might be told that the Hilton McCormick Place connects directly to the convention centre and has recently upgraded the executive lounge the guest rated highly on a previous stay. Selecting that option doesn’t just confirm a room, it can bundle in a preferred room type, an airport transfer and breakfast preferences pulled from earlier visits, all while the guest retains control over the final choice. By April, Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta confirmed the company would open its planner to more large language models, including Gemini and OpenAI’s systems, alongside Claude. Speaking on an investor call, he struck a measured tone about the pace of disruption: “I think on the margin though, if we do our job, AI allows us to be more efficient and more effective,” while predicting the distribution landscape would look broadly similar five years from now. IHG AND MARRIOTT CHASE DIRECT BOOKINGS THROUGH GOOGLE IHG Hotels & Resorts confirmed its role in Google’s agentic AI booking pilot while reporting half-year 2026 results. Guests using Google’s AI Mode can book an IHG hotel directly, and crucially, that booking counts as a direct reservation rather than one routed through a third-party agency. IHG also joined Google’s Direct Offers pilot, which surfaces promotions mid-planning and links travellers straight back to the group’s own site. The company reported total revenue of almost US$2.7 billion for the first half of 2026, up 5.6 per cent year on year, with operating profit rising 10 per cent to US$665 million. Marriott International moved on a parallel track. CEO Anthony Capuano told investors the company would deploy natural language search across its website and the Bonvoy app, while also collaborating with Google on AI-mediated bookings and running an ad pilot with OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the US. The stakes behind these partnerships go beyond convenience. Executives frame agentic AI as a way of cutting out the intermediary, the online travel agencies that typically take 18 to 20 per cent commission on each booking. Remove that layer, and margins for hotel groups improve considerably. IDC’s analysts back the scale of the shift, forecasting that AI agents could handle nearly a third of all travel bookings by 2030. WYNDHAM’S NUMBERS SHOW WHAT’S ACTUALLY CHANGING Wyndham’s data offers the clearest glimpse yet of measurable impact. Its Connect PLUS platform, now running across more than 1,100 properties, uses agentic AI to manage direct guest communication. The
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They’re building infrastructure that lets an algorithm plan a trip, choose a room and complete a booking, all without a guest lifting more than a thumb company reports a 300 basis point rise in voice conversion and a 400 basis point lift in guest satisfaction. A separate PwC case study found Wyndham cut brand standards review time by 94 per cent using AI agents, saving between 40 and 80 hours per review cycle while reducing call centre costs. Wyndham has committed more than US$450 million to AI and technology investment, forging partnerships with Salesforce, AWS, Oracle, Anthropic and OpenAI. Scott Strickland, the company’s chief commercial officer, described the pace of iteration bluntly at a Phocuswright panel: “We’re in version five of our Claude app or version two of our OpenAI app because we need to iterate quickly and understand where that conversation is going, so we can be part of that.” WHERE THIS LEAVES THE GUEST Opinions differ on where all this settles. Some see a fairer playing field emerging, one where independent hotels finally compete on equal terms with brands that once dominated through marketing budgets alone. Others worry the reverse: if agents come to control discovery and booking at scale, both legacy platforms and hotel brands may struggle to explain what value they still add beyond the room itself. What seems certain is that the properties adapting their data and systems now are the ones likely to be found, and booked, by guests who no longer want to search at all. They simply want to ask, and get exactly what they need in return.
ABOVE: Tijili Hotel Benoa (Unsplash)
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CRUISES
HOTEL BRANDS TAKING TO THE SEA Luxury cruising is being rewritten, and it isn’t traditional cruise lines leading the charge. Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Orient Express and Aman have all launched or are launching their own yachts, betting that hotel loyalty translates directly onto the water. Words by AKANKSHA MAKER
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uxury cruising is having a moment. Traditional cruise lines are not leading it. Over the past four years, hospitality names have moved onto the water. The bet is simple: loyalty follows the brand, even onto a yacht. For business travellers loyal to these hotels on land, that’s worth understanding. This shift is moving faster than most people realise. RITZ-CARLTON GOT THERE FIRST Ritz-Carlton started this trend in 2022 and remains the most established name in the category. Three vessels sail under its flag: Evrima, Ilma, and the newly launched Luminara. Together, they carry 298 to 452 guests. Pricing is the most accessible of the lot. Allinclusive fares cover dining, most drinks, Wi-Fi, gratuities, and water sports. With a third ship now live, itineraries have grown bolder for 2026. Think East and
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Southeast Asia. Think the South Pacific, Alaska, Scandinavia. Not just the usual MediterraneanCaribbean loop. FOUR SEASONS BRINGS ITS HOTEL PLAYBOOK TO THE WATER Four Seasons joined the race in March 2026. Its ship, Four Seasons I, carries 222 passengers and has 11 dining venues. There is a 16-person omakase counter and a bar built just for champagne and caviar. The real signature is the transverse marina. It opens on both sides of the yacht for direct water access, swimming, kayaking, and paddleboarding. Staterooms feel like hotel rooms, not cabins. Space per passenger is about 50 per cent more than most rivals offer. Four Seasons skipped the all-inclusive model entirely. Meals, spa treatments, shore excursions: none are included. This keeps the experience closer to booking a hotel room O C T OBER 2 0 2 6
CRUISES
ABOVE AND BOTTOM: Luminara by The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection & Four Seasons yacht OCTOBER 2026
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than boarding a cruise. In its first year, the yacht covers 130-plus destinations across 30 countries. Winter in the Caribbean. Summer in the Mediterranean, Croatia, Greece, Türkiye. A second ship is under construction, due in 2027. Then, just three months after that launch, Four Seasons doubled down. In June 2026, the brand revealed Four Seasons II and pushed its debut out to 2028. This one goes even further. Suites drop from 95 to 79, but each grows more spacious. The new “Yacht Residential Suites” lean fully into that idea: multibedroom layouts built for families and longer voyages. Staff ratio climbs to nearly one-to-one. It’s a clear signal: Four Seasons isn’t testing the waters here. It’s building a fleet. Four Seasons hasn’t released specific itineraries for Four Seasons II. It debuts in 2028, and the company’s announcements so far have focused on the ship itself, the 79 residential-style suites, the nearly one-to-one staff ratio, rather than routing.
This trend isn’t staying at sea. Waldorf Astoria and Mandarin Oriental have both announced branded river vessels for the Nile
What we do know: Four Seasons has said the second yacht will follow the same broad Mediterranean-insummer, Caribbean-in-winter rotation as Four Seasons I. Beyond that, nothing concrete yet. ORIENT EXPRESS BETS ON SAIL POWER Orient Express, owned by Accor, took a completely different route. Its ship, Corinthian, began sailing in June 2026. It is the world’s largest sailing yacht, with three masts, each 328 feet tall, rigged with nearly 48,500 sqf of “SolidSail” technology. No canvas here. Guests can even take the helm themselves. The brand leans hard into this novelty. Interiors nod to the 64 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
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CRUISES golden age of rail travel. Dining venues include L’Encre, an oyster-focused spot worth the trip alone. A sister ship follows in 2027. Pricing sits well above RitzCarlton’s, putting Orient Express near the top of the market alongside Four Seasons. AMAN TAKES THE SLOWEST, MOST EXCLUSIVE ROUTE Aman is playing the long game. Its joint venture with Cruise Saudi, called Aman at Sea, launched its first yacht from Genoa in July 2026. Service begins in May 2027, sailing from Palma de Mallorca on a six-night maiden voyage to Nice. The ship, Amangati, holds just 47 suites across a 600-foot hull, making it the smallest vessel in this category. It is also the most expensive by a wide margin. Entry suites run roughly double the size of Ritz-Carlton’s. Top suites stretch to 3,811 sqf, with a
private lift and an in-suite massage room. True to Aman’s DNA on land, this yacht leans into privacy over scale. Private charters matter more here than packed itineraries. One highlight is a sunset passage through Venice’s Grand Canal as the yacht slips out of the lagoon. Demand has been strong. Loyal Aman guests are already booking the top-tier suite, US$25,000 to US$30,000 a night, well before the 2027 debut.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Amangati Yacht; Orient Express Sailing Yachts; Mandarin Oriental to Expand Its Presence in Egypt With Two Iconic Hotels and a Luxury Nile Cruise Experience
EVEN HOTEL RIVER CRUISING IS CATCHING ON This trend isn’t staying at sea. Waldorf Astoria and Mandarin Oriental have both announced branded river vessels for the Nile. Hotel groups see potential beyond open-water yachting. As more brands test these waters, expect the category to keep expanding into new formats.
WHY HOTEL BRANDS ARE CHOOSING YACHTS OVER SHIPS The logic across all four brands is roughly the same. Hotel groups already have guest relationships, service standards, and brand equity. What they’ve lacked until now is a presence on water. Instead of competing with mega-ships carrying thousands, these yachts compete on space, privacy, and the personal service guests expect on land. Industry watchers flag a real risk. Four major brands, all active or imminent within five years, are crowding the space. Profitability across the category remains uncertain. Even so, demand for the top suites looks real. WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE BUSINESS TRAVELLER For loyal guests of these brands, the appeal is obvious. It’s a low-friction way to extend loyalty into something new, a milestone trip or a business trip stretched into leisure. The four options span a real range. Ritz-Carlton sits at the accessible end. Aman sits at the ultra-private, ultraexpensive end. Between them, there’s genuine choice depending on budget and appetite for scale. Expect more hotel brands to test this playbook soon. The line between five-star hospitality and luxury cruising keeps blurring and isn’t slowing down. OCTOBER 2026
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WATCHES
THE
TIGER & THE
GATE Photo Courtesy Jaipur Watch Company THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM COM 66 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA
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Gaurav Mehta, Founder, Jaipur Watch Company
Inside a Jaipur palace at high tea, Gaurav Mehta bet that two watches could carry the weight of a country’s history Words by ESHA APHALE
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WATCHES he invitation had said high tea at Rambagh Palace, and by the time I arrived on the lawns, the light had already turned a particular amber that Jaipur produces only in the last hour before dusk. Waiters in cream jackets moved between the marble columns with silver trays of sandwiches and pastries. Somewhere behind the palace’s central dome, the sun was sinking low over the Aravalli hills, and the whole launch, watches and all, felt like it was unfolding inside one long, slowburning photograph. It did not feel like the setting in which one would be told how a man had sourced watch rubies from decommissioned vintage watch movements, because you cannot simply buy them off a shelf. And yet that is roughly how the afternoon went, grandeur on one side, granular obsession on the other, the two circling each other for the better part of two hours.
PICTURED: Jaipur Watch Company timepieces and their making
Gaurav Mehta founded Jaipur Watch Company thirteen years ago. On this particular evening, as the tea service gave way to conversation and the light kept dropping, he was unveiling the Gaurav Mehta Collection, his first fully signature line, built around two pieces that could not be more different in temperament, even if they had clearly been raised in the same house. The Premium Baagh is an ode to the tiger, brooding and singular, its whole narrative folded inward onto one dial. The Gates of India is a two-faced watch in the most literal sense, flipping between the gates of Jaipur’s City Palace on one side and four of the country’s most recognisable monuments on the other, as though the wearer were carrying two separate arguments about India on a single wrist. What made the Gates of India land, at least for me, had nothing to do with the palace at all. On our first morning in the city we had been taken to see the gates that inspired the collection in person, at Pritam Niwas Chowk inside the City Palace, where the Lotus Gate and the Leheriya Gate rise several storeys into carved stone and painted plaster. Photographs never quite convey how ornate they are. You have to stand directly beneath them, craning your neck at doorways built for 68 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
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WATCHES kings rather than tourists. A few hours later, watching those same gates appear on the face of a watch barely forty millimetres across, in exactly the same colours and with every carved detail seemingly intact, produced a genuinely strange feeling. It was as though the gates had simply been shrunk down and pressed into the case, rather than reproduced from scratch, nothing lost, nothing simplified for the sake of scale. The Premium Baagh is the more theatrical of the two watches, and it lands immediately rather than rewarding a second look the way the Gates of India does. At its centre, a sculpted tiger walks across a desert landscape rendered in a turquoise stone mosaic, laid piece by piece, almost brick by brick, to give the dial the texture of an actual wall. The time display sits off to one side, wrapped in pink Muslin Khadi fabric, and above it a miniature Chhatri, the domed pavilion form found across Rajput architecture, holds a single ruby at its heart. That stone, it turns out, is an actual watch jewel, repurposed from vintage movements most collectors would rather keep than dismantle. Every case is CNC-milled from stainless steel, with turquoise inlays set directly into the lugs,
It was as though the gates had simply been shrunk down and pressed into the case
and a Swiss Sellita SW200 automatic movement sits visible through an exhibition caseback, an etched tiger repeating the motif already on the dial above it. The whole object reads less like a finished product and more like something excavated fully formed. I managed to sit down with Mehta once the tea service had thinned out and the crowd had drifted toward the watches themselves. He talked in the unhurried way people do when they have already answered the same handful of questions several times that day but still seem to mean every word of it. On the difficulty of building the Baagh’s dial, he was blunt: “There’s a turquoise stone dial which has been placed brick by brick, so it gives the appearance of a wall,” he said, “The piece where the hands move has khadi fabric on it so that there are multiple layers on one single watch.” “Sourcing the ruby was its own separate headache,” says Mehta, “since watch rubies are not easy to find in the open market, which meant taking them from vintage movements before resetting them into a new dial.” OCTOBER 2026
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WATCHES
At its centre, a sculpted tiger walks across a desert landscape rendered in a turquoise stone mosaic laid piece by piece, almost brick by brick, to give the dial the texture of an actual wall
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Asked where he saw the brand sitting relative to the old Swiss houses that still dominate the category, Mehta was direct, as if he had made peace with the question long before it was asked of him again that evening. “We are not competing with anyone,” he told me, “we are building our own DNA, we are building our own stories.” It could easily have sounded like a line a founder repeats until it loses meaning, except that everything else he said backed it up, right down to his conviction that the brand’s advantage lies less in outpacing Geneva and more in giving people something genuinely new to talk about at dinner. “Indian stories are great,” he said, “and our watches are good conversation starters.” One answer stayed with me longer than the rest, mostly because Mehta himself still seemed faintly puzzled by it. Asked which market had surprised him most since the brand began shipping internationally, he did not hesitate: Japan, he said, had surprised him most in terms of sheer order volume, with Japanese buyers, rather than members of the Indian diaspora, placing orders for five, eight, sometimes nine watches at a time. There was something almost bemused in the way he described it, a craftsman still working out, in real time, why a nation famous for its own centuriesold watchmaking tradition had developed such an unlikely appetite for his.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Premium Baagh “Tiger’s Eye”; making of Gates of India; and “Pink Gate”, Premium Baagh “Sellita” caseback By the time we left, the sun had gone down entirely behind Rambagh’s gardens. The palace was lit from within against a sky that had turned from amber to a deep, bruised blue, and the watches in their glass cases caught what little light remained. What stayed with me on the drive back was not the ruby or the mosaic work, impressive as both are, but the memory of standing beneath those City Palace gates two mornings earlier and then finding them again, faithfully rendered, on the back of a watch case that same afternoon. Mehta seems to be playing a longer game than a single collection would suggest, using two very different watches to argue for where Indian craft belongs in an industry still largely defined by European names. Whether that argument lands with the global collectors he is courting remains genuinely open. But as a first move, staged over high tea inside a former royal residence with a tiger on one wrist and a pair of shrunken city gates on the other, it was difficult to look away from.
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GIFTING
S
BEYOND THE
omething interesting happens once a person has bought, owned, or experienced most of what money can buy: their attention begins moving toward things that can’t simply be added to a pile. A new watch joins three others in a drawer, a hamper is forwarded straight to the pantry, and a bottle of single malt lines up beside eleven identical ones, still unopened. The search for a meaningful gift then shifts, quite naturally, toward something built around who a person is, rather than what they already have. Increasingly, that gift takes the shape of attention itself, translated into an experience, and Mumbai’s own wellness scene has quietly built an entire ecosystem around getting that translation right, no international shipping or long-haul flight required.
LOGOS ARE OUT
BOX
This is the real story behind the shift in high-end gifting today, and it has everything to do with meaning and very little to do with logos. At a certain level, everyone already knows the value of a price tag, since access to the same handful of maisons and limited editions has become fairly universal. What genuinely stands out, then, is something quieter and harder to manufacture: whether the giver took the time to think about the recipient specifically and whether what they chose
On the art of giving something that actually lands, once almost everything else has already been bought
ISTOCK
Words by MARIA VERGHESE
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GIFTING LEFT AND RIGHT: Subko Coffee and Svara Perfume into something closer to ritual. KCROASTERS, working out of Khar, does something similar on a smaller, more artisanal scale, pairing its small-batch roasts with other local makers for a hamper that feels distinctly of the city rather than assembled from a catalogue. Paired with a manual brewing setup chosen for how the recipient actually takes their coffee, whether that’s a pour-over for someone who savours the process or a compact espresso setup for someone who wants precision on the move, these gifts work particularly well for frequent travellers, since a well-designed kit can be broken down and packed for the next trip.
THE OBJECT, STILL WORTH CHOOSING honours that person’s time, body and inner life, rather than simply their shelf space. Wellness has become the new language of prestige, and gifting has followed close behind it, moving away from objects that sit on a shelf and toward experiences that leave a person feeling genuinely restored.
TUNING OUT THE NOISE
Sound healing has emerged as one of the most sought-after offerings in this category, and the city has no shortage of serious practitioners. Shakti Souls offers sound healing both at their centre and as an at-home session, tailored to a specific person rather than run as a generic group format, while Aikyam Integrated Holistic Space, where sound healing sits alongside their wider holistic offerings, works well as a gift for someone who wants the experience woven into a broader wellness practice. Gifted as a voucher for a private session, sound healing offers something no hamper ever could: forty-five uninterrupted minutes in which the only task is to lie still and listen.
VITALITY, BY THE DROP
IV therapy and longevity diagnostics have moved along a similar path, evolving from a recovery treatment into a genuine gifting category in its own right. The Wellness Co., with clinics in South Bombay and Bandra, has built its reputation on precisely this shift, offering everything from a single tailored vitamin drip to cryotherapy and advanced genetic screening under one roof. REVIV, with locations in Worli and Juhu, offers a similarly polished menu of curated infusions in a setting closer to a private lounge than a clinic. A gift card for either, timed to land just before or after a long-haul flight, works particularly well for OCTOBER 2026
frequent travellers, and it carries an appeal that a spa hamper simply cannot match: it is measurable, immediate, and entirely personal.
A SCENT OF ONE’S OWN
Perfume remains, and will likely always remain, one of the most personal gifts a person can give, and the category itself has grown considerably more interesting in recent years. Founded in 1904 by Albert Krigler, initially rooted in St Petersburg and Berlin, the historic house of Krigler crafts ultra-exclusive, multi-session bespoke perfumes for an elite global clientele, continuing a tradition once favoured by European royalty and historical icons. Closer to home, Svara, India’s first magnesium-infused wellness perfume, takes the category in an entirely different direction: an alcohol-free, oil-based formula built on Indian botanicals like tulsi, vetiver and sandalwood, designed to deliver topical magnesium through the skin even as it scents it, making it as much a small daily ritual as a fragrance. For something with real heritage behind it, the historic Attar Galli in Bhendi Bazaar, where several shops have been hand-blending attar since the late 1800s, remains one of the few places in the country where a fragrance can still be mixed to order in front of the person buying it, using nothing but flowers, oils and time.
COFFEE, AS RITUAL
Even the daily ritual has found its way into serious gifting, and few categories illustrate this better than the coffee kit. Subko, which started as a single Bombay roastery before expanding into its own bakehouse and cacao line, now offers beautifully packaged single-origin beans alongside brewing gear, turning an ordinary morning
None of this is to say the physical gift is dead; when an object is chosen well, it survives the same scrutiny as an experience; it says something specific about the person receiving it. An Hermès cashmere throw or a Byredo fragrance picked in person reads differently from a generic hamper because someone had to think about where it would live. Christofle silverware or an Assouline book chosen around a person’s specific obsession, like architecture, motorsport, or a decade of film, tends to outlast everything else, precisely because it was never meant to be used up. Closer to home, a commission from Heeramaneck and Son, hand-blending at Attar Galli, or a monogrammed leather piece from a city atelier work the same way: the effort has to be visible, and it usually is the only thing that’s hard to fake.
PRESENCE OVER POSSESSION
What unites all of these categories, and all of these addresses, is a shift away from possessions and toward presence. A spa day ends. A coffee kit gets used up and replenished. A signature scent eventually needs refilling. None of these gifts is designed to last forever, and that impermanence, oddly enough, is exactly what makes them feel valuable: each one asks for a moment of the recipient’s attention, rather than simply occupying space in their home. The next great gift, then, will rarely be found in a boutique window, and increasingly, it won’t need to be found abroad either. It will begin with a conversation, one that asks what a person actually needs a little more of in their life, whether that’s stillness, ritual, or simply the sense that someone paid close attention, and builds outward from there, often no further than the other side of the city. THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM 73
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WHY PERSONALISED SERVICE REMAINS THE TRUE LUXURY True luxury isn’t remembering more about guests, it’s knowing what they need in the moment, and having the judgment to act on it.
BOB SURI, GENERAL MANAGER AT FOUR SEASONS HOTEL ABU DHABI
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think the hospitality industry has become very good at remembering guests. I am not always sure we have become equally good at understanding them.
DATA IS NOT PERSONALISATION
Today, hotels can retain an extraordinary amount of information: room preferences, favourite drinks, dietary requirements, travel patterns, birthdays and anniversaries. All of this is useful. But data is not personalisation. It simply gives us more context. The real skill is knowing what matters to a guest in that particular moment. A returning guest may normally enjoy conversation. After a 14-hour flight, however, the most thoughtful thing we can do may be to recognise that they are tired, keep the welcome brief, and get them to their room quickly. That is why I believe reading the moment is more important than simply remembering the preference.
WHY MORE ISN’T ALWAYS BETTER
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Sometimes doing less is the more personalised response. It’s the relevant and thoughtful recognition that creates real, long-lasting memories A guest should feel that we remember them, not that we have studied them. Sometimes the best service is discreet and almost invisible, yet still deeply felt by the guest. For frequent business travellers, this is especially true. Luxury is not always about doing more. Often, it is simply about making things easier. It means not having to explain the same preference again, not waiting unnecessarily, not going through ceremony when all you want is efficiency, and not having to ask twice. Sometimes doing less is the more personalised response. It’s the relevant and thoughtful recognition that creates real, long-lasting memories.
THE POWER OF “GOLDEN NUGGETS”
Over the years, I have also learned that some of the most useful information about a guest rarely comes from a formal profile. It comes from small conversations. Someone mentions that their daughter loves Formula One. A guest talks about a restaurant they discovered on their last visit. Another says, almost in passing, that tomorrow is an important meeting. I think of these details as “golden nuggets.” But the real skill is in reading between them, connecting the dots, and turning what we know into genuine care for the guest. OCTOBER 2026
The important part is not simply collecting them. It is what happens next. Does that information move naturally between colleagues? Does somebody recognise an opportunity to use it? And perhaps more importantly, do they have the judgment to know when not to?
WHERE TECHNOLOGY ENDS AND JUDGMENT BEGINS
Technology helps enormously here. At Four Seasons, Abu Dhabi, guest profiles allow our teams to have details at hand and create continuity from one stay to the next. But technology can only take us so far. A system can tell me what a guest preferred yesterday. It cannot always tell me what they need today. It cannot fully read a pause, a change in tone, a tired expression, or the difference between someone who wants conversation and someone who wants quiet. That still comes down to people.
THE QUESTION THAT GUIDES OUR TEAMS
I often ask our teams one simple question: How can I make this guest’s stay more memorable? The answer is rarely something extravagant. Sometimes it is simply noticing something, remembering it, and acting on it at the right time. Sometimes it is removing a small frustration. And occasionally, it is having the confidence to do nothing at all. That is the part of hospitality I find most interesting. Hotels can replicate design, products and technology surprisingly quickly. What is much harder to replicate is the judgment of a person who understands what a guest needs in that moment and responds in a way that feels natural. And that, to me, is why personalised service remains the true luxury. THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM 75
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CAN BUSINESS HOTELS SURVIVE WITHOUT TECH INTEGRATION? Xenia Jamshyd Lam, General Manager, Hyatt Centric Juhu Mumbai shares her thoughts on the same
XENIA JAMSHYD LAM GENERAL MANAGER, HYATT CENTRIC JUHU MUMBAI
T
he hospitality industry has changed dramatically over the last decade, particularly in the business travel segment. Today’s travellers expect speed, convenience, personalisation, and seamless connectivity at every stage of their journey. In such an environment, technology is no longer just an operational support system for hotels, it has become central to delivering a competitive guest experience. Business travellers operate on tight schedules and often rely on hotels as temporary workplaces. Delayed check-ins, unreliable internet connectivity, or outdated booking systems can negatively affect both productivity and guest satisfaction. As digital convenience becomes a standard expectation across industries, hotels that fail to adapt may find it increasingly difficult to meet evolving customer demands. Technology now shapes nearly every touchpoint of a hotel stay. Mobile reservations, contactless payments, digital room keys, automated concierge services, and smart meeting spaces are quickly becoming industry standards rather than luxury features. Guests have grown accustomed to intuitive digital experiences in everyday life, and they expect the same efficiency when they travel for work. However, technology should not be viewed as a replacement for hospitality. The essence of the hotel industry will always remain rooted in human interaction, warmth, and personalised service. The real value of tech integration lies in its ability to simplify operations and remove friction from the guest journey. By automating repetitive processes, hotel teams can focus more on meaningful guest engagement and service quality. Beyond guest convenience, technology also improves operational efficiency. Integrated systems help hotels manage inventory, streamline communication, optimise staffing, and better understand guest preferences through data insights. These improvements contribute to smoother operations, stronger profitability, and more personalised experiences. Technology also
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The essence of the hotel industry will always remain rooted in human interaction, warmth, and personalised service supports sustainability efforts through energy management systems and reduced paper-based processes, both of which are increasingly important in modern hospitality. The rise of hybrid work culture has further accelerated the need for digital transformation. Many travellers now combine business with leisure, expecting flexible spaces that support both productivity and relaxation. Hotels equipped with reliable connectivity, smart workspaces, and digitally enabled services are better positioned to cater to this growing segment of guests. At the Hyatt, the focus has been on ensuring that technology complements hospitality rather than overshadowing it. The objective is to create a seamless and intuitive experience while maintaining the personalised service that guests value most. That said, successful integration requires balance. Investing in technology simply because it is trending can create unnecessary complexity if it does not genuinely improve the guest experience. Hotels must adopt solutions that are practical, efficient, and aligned with guest expectations. Ultimately, business hotels may continue operating without advanced technology in the short term, but long-term competitiveness will become increasingly difficult. Modern travellers expect efficiency alongside comfort, and hotels that fail to evolve risk appearing outdated in a rapidly changing industry. Seamless tech integration is no longer an added advantage — it is becoming essential for survival in contemporary business hospitality. O C T OBER 2 0 2 6
TRIED & TESTED Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit
Waldorf Astoria Bangkok Mandarin Oriental, New York
Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit Bangkok
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Mandarin Oriental, New York The Mandarin Oriental, New York is situated above Columbus Circle with Central Park spreading out below it and combines its famous location with a sophisticated and art-oriented version of urban luxury. BEST FOR For travellers who want a central Manhattan address, elevated design, and a wellness experience GOOD TO KNOW The hotel is located at Columbus Circle, with Central Park being reachable within a two-minute walk and Lincoln Centre six minutes’ walk away DON’T MISS Having breakfast at the MO Lounge on the 35th floor, since the views of Central Park make even oatmeal seem like something special WHAT’S IT LIKE The Mandarin
Oriental, New York, is situated above the Deutsche Bank Centre at Columbus Circle, a place which the hotel refers to as the city’s real heart. The property opened in December 2003 and was designed by Brennan Beer Gorman Architects, with the interior design carried out by Hirsch Bedner Associates. Throughout the building, a modern style is combined with a sophisticated Oriental touch. Nearly all windows look out over Central Park, the Hudson River, and the Manhattan skyline. The building rises 54 storeys as a hotel, but its residences extend far higher, reaching the 80th floor. The property also houses The Shops at Columbus Circle, a full retail mall, along with multiple office spaces beneath the hotel and residential towers. Together, these components form part of the Deutsche Bank Center complex.
ROOMS I was in the Oriental Suite, which is one of the four Signature Suites located at the corners of the guest floors. When you arrive you are given sweeping views
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of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. The room has Oriental design details and rich silk textiles combined with modern artwork. The kitchen is equipped with custom Italian cabinets, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, making it suitable for hosting guests or for spending a quiet evening at home. The master bedroom provides a peaceful place to be alone and includes an ensuite marble bathroom. This bathroom has a deep soaking tub, a glass-enclosed shower, two sinks and a walk-in wardrobe. There is also a separate study and a media room that offer a calm getaway from the city below. The standard guest rooms are similarly well thought out, offering soft bedding, furnishings in the style of the 1940s and new artwork from Chinese and Taiwanese artists. All the bathrooms are fitted with soft beige Spanish marble, along with cherry wood vanities and Italian granite countertops. FACILITIES The Spa at the Mandarin Oriental, New York, is the longest-established Forbes Five Star spa on the East Coast, featuring a VIP Spa
Suite which has skyline views and two massage beds as well as the Thai Suite with teak cladding. The wellness facilities also include an Amethyst Crystal Steam Room and an oxygen-concentrated Vitality Pool. There is a 75-foot heated lap pool that commands views of the Hudson River, together with a full fitness centre and private classes that can be arranged. In 2024 the hotel became the first in North America to receive certification from the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, and it has possessed the Forbes Travel Guide VERIFIED Responsible Hospitality badge since 2025. DINING Breakfast at the MO
Lounge, on the hotel’s 35th floor, sets a calm tone for the day. Central Park is visible in its entirety as the fresh, seasonal foods are brought to the table. My morning meal consisted of sunny-side-up, blueberries and walnuts, along with sourdough toast, and a well-made cappuccino. It was a simple dish, made with well-sourced ingredients and executed with precision, and it provided the perfect introduction to a day spent exploring the city.
PRICE From around US$1,600, with seasonal variation in pricing CONTACT Mandarin Oriental, New York 80 Columbus Circle at 60th Street, New York, NY 10023 mandarinoriental.com/new-york
In the evening, the MO Lounge moves to a more refined style, offering globally influenced cuisine and skilfully prepared cocktails, all set against the same magnificent view. If you prefer something more private, The Bar is a reimagined speakeasy modelled on the Silk Road, featuring live piano on Wednesdays and DJ sets on Saturdays. VERDICT The Mandarin
Oriental in New York provides a traditional style of hospitality combined with a truly modern touch; it is still one of the city’s most thorough options for a luxury hotel thanks to the residential atmosphere of the Oriental Suite, the excellent spa, and the breakfast, which is worth getting up early to enjoy. Words by RAVI LALWANI O CT OBER 2 0 2 6
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Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit Bangkok Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit holds a distinction few Bangkok hotels can claim: it was Thailand’s first Luxury Collection property. This review covers the Rama Suite, breakfast at Rossini’s, and why this address still commands its reputation. Thrice a week, the hotel runs its Destination Discovery programmes too. The Art of Lotus Folding, held at The Sala on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, teaches guests the meditative Thai tradition of folding lotus petals. Meanwhile, Sweet Sawasdee brings complimentary Thai royal desserts to The Living Room each afternoon, recipes with over 400 years of history, first perfected in the Ayutthaya Kingdom’s royal courts. DINING Breakfast happens at
WHAT’S IT LIKE The hotel
greets guests with its Tree of Life sculpture, a symbol of prosperity that sets the tone for what follows. Inside, polished teakwood, handcrafted silks, and rare imported marble carry that Thai artistry through every corridor. It’s steeped in cultural authenticity, yet the LED-equipped ballroom reminds you this is still very much a modern business hotel. Outside, tropical gardens and water features do their best to make you forget you’re minutes from the Stock Exchange of Thailand and the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center.
ROOMS I stayed in the Rama
Suite, one of the property’s signature accommodations. The suite itself measures 77 sqm. Step outside, though, and the real luxury shows up: an outdoor sitting area and private Jacuzzi spanning a further 164 sqm. Few city hotels in Bangkok offer that kind of private outdoor space. Even the standard rooms don’t shortchange guests. At 45 sqm, they’re among the most OCTOBER 2026
spacious in Bangkok, each with a walk-in closet and an elegant marble bathroom. Every room includes a personal butler service, a wall-mounted LCD TV that rotates 180 degrees, and up to 20 Mbps of high-speed internet. Across the property, there are 420 rooms and suites in total, including 42 Grande Suites, three Specialty Suites, and three Thai-themed Suites overlooking Lake Ratchada. FACILITIES The Grande Spa offers an extensive menu of signature treatments, paired with a fitness centre that includes its own Jacuzzis and saunas. The hotel’s free-form swimming pool sits inside a lush garden, complete with a poolside restaurant and bar, a genuine escape from the city just beyond the gates. For business travellers, the Business Center has picked up numerous awards for its technology, and meeting rooms are available for up to 15 people. Guests can also unwind at The Library, a quiet spot for reading or an informal meeting over a drink.
Rossini’s (for Club and Suite categories; for other room types, breakfast takes place at the cafe downstairs), the hotel’s award-winning Italian restaurant, set inside what feels like a Tuscan villa. My plate was simple but well executed: oatmeal porridge topped with walnuts and almonds, two eggs fried over hard, fresh-cut fruit, and a cappuccino. Nothing showy here, just proper technique applied consistently. Beyond Rossini’s, the dining programme runs deep. Basil serves some of the city’s finest authentic Thai cuisine, while the Orchid Café offers one of Bangkok’s best international buffets. The Sala serves alfresco Asian and Western fare by day and barbecue under the stars at night. And then there’s The Living Room, Bangkok’s premier jazz venue, hosting international musicians nightly and a Sunday Jazzy Brunch that’s become something of an institution in itself. The suite came with more than square footage. Cocktails and canapés were served in the living room each evening, a welcome way to unwind after a day out in the city’s heat. Airport transfers, too,
BEST FOR Business travellers who want a skybridge connection to the BTS and MRT, genuine space, and a taste of Thai heritage without leaving the hotel GOOD TO KNOW The hotel connects directly to BTS Asok station by skybridge DON’T MISS Sweet Sawasdee at The Living Room, a daily ritual of Thai royal desserts with over 400 years of history PRICE From around THB 5,000, with seasonal variation in pricing CONTACT Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Bangkok 250 Sukhumvit Road, Klongtoey, Bangkok, Thailand marriott.com/bkklssheraton-grande-sukhumvit
were included, arriving via a Mercedes-Benz, a detail that matters more than it sounds after a long-haul flight into Suvarnabhumi. VERDICT Sheraton Grande
Sukhumvit earns its Luxury Collection status through genuine depth, not just heritage. The Rama Suite’s outdoor Jacuzzi terrace alone sets it apart from most Bangkok luxury suites, while The Living Room’s nightly jazz and the Sweet Sawasdee ritual give the property a real sense of place. Add in thoughtful extras like the airport transfer, and this remains one of Bangkok’s most complete five-star stays. Words by RAVI LALWANI THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM 79
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Waldorf Astoria Bangkok Waldorf Astoria Bangkok blends André Fu’s restrained lower floors with AvroKO’s dramatic dining levels. Here’s our full review of rooms, dining and facilities.
WHAT’S IT LIKE
The hotel occupies the Lower Lobby, levels six through 16, then jumps straight to the top: levels 55 to 57. That gap matters. It means the dining floors sit above the city rather than beside it. André Fu brought subtle Thai motifs through the lower levels, blending heritage with something more contemporary. Upstairs, AvroKO took over, designing three destination venues that lean harder into drama. Sebastien Pisano, appointed General Manager in March 2025, previously ran Conrad Bora Bora, and it shows in how unhurried the whole place feels. ROOMS
I stayed in the Astoria Suite, one of ten One-Bedroom Astoria Suites in the hotel. It measures 140 sqm, generous even by Bangkok standards. The property holds 171 rooms and suites in total, and every category benefits from that same design sensibility. Standard King and Twin Deluxe rooms run 50 sqm. At the very top sits the Two-Bedroom Royal Suite, 80 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
a genuinely enormous 355 sqm. Every room comes with complimentary Wi-Fi and a personal concierge service, small details that add up over a longer stay. FACILITIES
Level 16 does a lot of heavy lifting. It houses an outdoor, temperature-controlled swimming pool, the Waldorf Astoria Spa, and a 24-hour fitness studio, all in one spot. Complimentary group yoga runs weekly, with private sessions available for guests who want one-on-one attention. For events, the Magnolia Ballroom offers an eight-metre ceiling and space for up to 700 guests across 730 sqm. Eight further meeting rooms, ranging from 20 to
490 sqm, give the hotel real flexibility for anything from a private reception to a full conference.
BEST FOR Travellers who want serious space, a design-led stay, and destination dining without leaving the building
DINING
GOOD TO KNOW The hotel sits inside the 60-storey Magnolias Ratchadamri Boulevard, with the Royal Bangkok Sports Club visible from Peacock Alley and the Upper Lobby restaurants
Breakfast happened at The Brasserie, widely regarded as one of Bangkok’s finest breakfast rooms. My plate was simple and well judged: an egg white omelette, sourdough toast, low-fat yoghurt, and a cappuccino. Nothing heavy, nothing fussy, just precise execution before a full day out in the city. The rest of the dining programme goes further. Front Room, on the Lower Lobby, channels a Thai spice shop, with over 200 lanterns hanging beneath an eight-metre ceiling. The menu builds around Thailand’s eight signature flavours, and dishes like the seared Hokkaido scallop with lotus stem show real ambition. Peacock Alley, the hotel’s signature lounge, keeps a Waldorf Astoria tradition alive with afternoon tea and the classic Waldorf salad. Upstairs, things get louder. Bull & Bear, on level 55, specialises in grilled meats, complete with a recreation of Wall Street’s famous bull statue. The Loft, on level 56, takes its cocktail programme from the original 1935 Waldorf Astoria Bar Book, accessed by a spiral staircase that sets the tone before you’ve even ordered. It’s ranked among Tatler’s Best 20 Bars in Thailand for 2026, and it earns that spot. Space, in the end, is what defines this stay. At 140 sqm, the Astoria Suite gives you room to actually live in, not just sleep in. Add breakfast at The Brasserie and the personal concierge service that runs throughout the hotel, and the whole experience
DON’T MISS The Loft on level 56, where cocktails are built from the original 1935 Waldorf Astoria Bar Book, reached by a spiral staircase that feels like walking into another decade ADDRESS 151 Ratchadamri Rd, Lumphini, Patumwan, Bangkok, Thailand 10330 PRICE From around THB 10,000, with seasonal variation in pricing CONTACT Waldorf Astoria Bangkok 151 Ratchadamri Rd, Lumphini, Patumwan, Bangkok, Thailand waldorfbangkok. waldorfastoria.com
feels considered rather than assembled. VERDICT
Waldorf Astoria Bangkok earns its reputation through design discipline as much as scale. André Fu’s lower floors and AvroKO’s dining levels create two distinct moods within one hotel, and both work. The Astoria Suite delivers genuine space in a city where that’s rare, while The Loft and Bull & Bear give the property real after-dark credibility. This remains one of Bangkok’s most complete luxury stays. Words by RAVI LALWANI
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Saikindō Saikindō may be built around sound, but it is the way the room, cocktails and food settle into the same rhythm that keeps drawing me back
BEST FOR Travellers who want Japaneseinspired cocktails, serious sound and small plates GOOD TO KNOW While the space is built around music, its cocktail and food programme gives enough reason to return DON’T MISS The sushi and yakitori PRICE AED 320 for two people CONTACT Located in Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi at Al Maryah Island Abu Dhabi Global Market, Second Street, Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates saikindo.com
WHAT IT’S LIKE Some places
are designed to impress on the first visit. Saikindō becomes more interesting once you know its rhythm. I have returned often enough to understand that the appeal is not simply the Japanese listening-bar concept, or even the impressive sound system. It is the way the evening changes depending on where you sit, what is playing and how long you decide to stay. The Hi-Fi Bar is where Saikindō makes the most sense. Music leads, conversation adjusts around it and the bartenders become part of the performance without turning every drink into theatre. The rest of the venue adds different layers: the Robata Room is more intimate and food-led while Kūkan is louder and more playful. The design is detailed, occasionally eccentric and very knowingly Japanese, but it does not need to be decoded to be enjoyed.
FOOD & DRINK The cocktail
menu could easily have become a concept looking for
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a drink. Instead, it is one of the stronger reasons to return. Presented as Side One and Side Two, Aji No Hibiki translates tracks from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s into flavour. AI was used to map elements such as tempo and tone, but thankfully that is not what you taste. What arrives is a proper cocktail: balanced, considered and able to stand on its own once the explanation is over. Loungin’ is one of my favourites and a good example of why the menu works. Inspired by the Guru track, it brings together mezcal,
shōchū, citrus zest, IPA hops and olives. On paper, there is a lot happening. In the glass, it is smoky, savoury and unexpectedly clean, with enough edge to remain interesting without becoming difficult. It also captures Saikindō’s point of view particularly well: Japanese ingredients and technique, interpreted through music rather than restricted by tradition. Much of that coherence comes from Marco Corallo, Saikindō’s Beverage Director, who created the bar menus.
His influence is visible beyond individual recipes. The drinks belong to the room’s identity rather than feeling like a separate hotel-bar programme. Japanese whisky, sake and shōchū receive proper attention; the free-spirited cocktails feel developed rather than included as an obligation; and there is enough range to reward repeat visits. The food is built for the way I prefer to eat at a bar: several small plates, ordered gradually, with no pressure to turn the evening into a formal dinner. Akami crispy rice, A5 Wagyu gyoza, sushi, yakitori and robata dishes move easily across the table. There is enough precision to make the food memorable, but it still understands its role. It supports the drinks, the music and the pace of the night rather than competing with them. Words by AITARA MIRAH THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM 81
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Qutab Minar: Inversion Photograph and words by JOSHUA KARTHIK
I shot this photograph of the very storied Qutab Minar in Delhi using a compositional trick called Inversion, where turning a scene upside down removes immediate subject recognition, forcing the viewer to notice lines, shapes, light, and negative space instead of the literal object. I love how this challenges our perception of scenes we’re familiar with. This photo was shot on iPhone 18 Pro Max on a warm, sunny evening in September 2026. 82 THEBUSINESSTRAVELINDIA.COM
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Overlooking Central Park, Park Lane New York offers a refined escape on Manhattan’s iconic Billionaire’s Row. The hotel channels the energy of the park, with spacious accommodations designed by Yabu Pushelberg, featuring custom murals by En Viu and sweeping city views. The lobby is adorned with flowers, greenery, and the occasional rabbit, bringing the magic of the park indoors. Located on the second floor, indulge in contemporary classics at Calvert’s, a nod to Central Park’s esteemed co-designer, Calvert Vaux. For breakfast with a view, head to the rooftop lounge Darling—the only one in the city overlooking Central Park.