For elite travelers who keep tabs on the evolution of luxury hotel brands, a hotel joining The Leading Hotels of the World was often an early sign of a promising future.
Today’s top luxury groups such as Mandarin Oriental, Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton and Jumeirah at one point were only a couple of hotels, and were each part of LHW before spreading their wings. Come late 2014, Patina Hotels & Resorts’ debut property in Singapore will enter LHW, and veteran hotelier Marc Dardenne is hoping he is at the helm of a future success story. Elite Traveler Editor-in-Chief Douglas Gollan met up with the boss during ITB in Berlin.