From the Cannes Yachting Festival to Monaco, discovering Four Seasons Yachts and supporting the Maybach Ocean Club project, Yves Hanania has a front-row seat to one of luxury’s most fascinating shifts. Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Oetker Collection, Aman, Orient Express: hospitality brands are extending their universes beyond hotels and into yachting, being about much more than luxurious ships.
These brands are removing a psychological barrier, with guests not buying a cruise but entering a trusted universe in a new environment. The strategic question is therefore fascinating. The strategic question of “how do you create a distinctive, desirable and hard-to-copy brand territory at sea?” is therefore fascinating.
Yves was invited by Four Seasons Yachts in collaboration with the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, which offered part of the answer to his question: intimacy, generosity, exceptional service and community — accompanied by extraordinary wines, from Château Lafite Rothschild to Château d’Yquem.
As he explores in my forthcoming book on Luxury 2030, we are witnessing the reshaping of luxury in real time: new territories, new communities and new forms of access. And perhaps the real luxury is increasingly not what you offer, but what others cannot replicate.
