SLH Toronto Showcase

Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) is on the road and made its only Canadian stop in Toronto last night (March 20) for its annual Showcase, updating the trade on all that’s new at the luxury brand of hotels.

Chief Executive Officer Filip Boyen spoke with PressToday and stressed that the Canadian market is extremely important to SLH – it is the third largest feeder market for the hotel brand, next to the US and the UK.

Boyen said one his goals is to get more member hotels in Canada. There’s currently only one — Trout Point Lodge in Nova Scotia.

“We’ve hired an ambassador to help find leads. We want to find new member hotels and raise brand awareness in Canada,” said Boyen.

SLH has 489 members world-wide, ranging from a three-room lodge in New Zealand to a 200-room hotel in New York. The average number of rooms is 48.

“We are the champions of small, independent luxury hotels,” said Boyen.

He added that today’s luxury travellers want an experience, to be a local for a couple of days.

“Travellers today are curious, they want to explore,” he said, “and our hotels are perfectly positioned to do that.”

SLH member numbers have actually dropped over the last year after new, stricter standards were put in place.

“Our first priority is quality over quantity,” said Boyen.

Pictured at the Toronto event are Boyen (r) and Jeffrey Sirota, vice-president, Worldwide Sales & Americas Region.