In the fall of 2020, Accor strengthened its hold on the lifestyle sector by forging a new entity with Ennismore, best known as the owner of the Hoxton brand. This joint venture—led by Ennismore founder and co-CEO Sharan Pasricha and Gaurav Bhushan, CEO of Accor’s lifestyle division and co-CEO of Ennismore—brings together brands including the Hoxton, Gleneagles, Delano, SLS, Mondrian, Morgans Originals, SO/, Hyde, Mama Shelter, 25hours, 21c Museum Hotels, TRIBE, JO&JOE, and Working From_ under the Ennismore umbrella, comprising one of the fastest-growing hotel and coworking portfolios. Here, Pasricha discusses the origins of this unconventional venture, the importance of showcasing personality-rich hotels, and how the lifestyle realm—including Ennismore’s own endeavors—is poised to further shake up the global hospitality scene.
What laid the groundwork for expanding Ennismore?
A couple of years ago, we set up a management company because we had a lot of owners and capital partners approach us to manage their hotels. Previously, we had owned and operated everything ourselves, and we started working with third-party capital partners and family offices, which gave us insight into the world of asset light and how that worked. I was always intrigued by the asset light part of the business and how we could scale that. During COVID, a big part of my time was spent wrapping my arms around the business and ensuring we could do all we could for our teams and employees. We had to play the waiting game for several months as a lot of [places] were in lockdown, and I started thinking about what our next move would be.

The glamorous 1920s-themed American Bar, crafted by David Collins Studio, at the Gleneagles Hotel in the Scottish countryside
What led you to Accor?
What people don’t know is that Gaurav and I went to the same high school in India a few years apart. We’ve known each other for several years, and I’ve admired what [Sébastien Bazin, chairman and CEO of Accor] and Gaurav have been building in the world of lifestyle over the years. One of the first calls I made during COVID was to Gaurav to pick his brain, given Accor’s size and its hotels in China to try to understand more about this virus and how it was spreading. We kept in touch, and he was a great source of ideas and inspiration. We were bouncing stuff off each other during those months. It became clear that there was an opportunity for us to combine forces.
What appealed to you about collaborating with Accor?
What Gaurav and Sébastien appreciated is that the world of lifestyle requires a different mindset and culture outside of their global headquarters in Paris to harness and foster the growth of these brands. They have been incredibly successful at taking several strategic stakes in lifestyle brands, with their ownership of sbe, Mama Shelter, and 25hours, as well as a joint venture with Faena.
Just as I was a great admirer of their business, they were a great admirer of mine. We put together our combined lifestyle businesses into what is still called Ennismore. Based out of London, it’s an autonomous business and team. We have 14 brands, 100 operating hotels, and just shy of 200 in the pipeline. As lifestyle hospitality operators go that makes us one of the largest- and fastest-growing companies out there.

The eclectic Artist Village suite at the 25hours Hotel One Central in Dubai
What do you think makes your partnership with Accor distinctive?
Over the last few decades, there have been some incredible entrepreneurs and brands that cap out at eight, 10, 12, 14 hotels. What tends to happen is one of the larger [brands] will acquire the smaller creative, innovative, mindful folks, and more often than not, the soul and the essence of that brand dies because there’s a clash of cultures. What’s interesting here is the construct is very different. Yes, Accor is a substantive shareholder in Ennismore and my joint venture partner. However, we’re very much an autonomous business. We are left to our own devices as it relates to all the things the customer touches and sees, which is what makes lifestyle hotels unique.
What does Accor’s decision to double down on lifestyle mean for the industry?
All of a sudden, we have the opportunity to compete at a global scale in one of the industry’s fastest-growing segments, using the creativity, autonomy, and authenticity of a small startup, but the balance sheet and might of Europe’s largest hotel company. Close to 10 percent of the hotel supply coming onto the market is lifestyle. There is a shift from a consumer perspective. They want their hotels to be more than just a bed for a night. There’s also a shift from an owner perspective. They realize lifestyle hotels are not much more expensive than building a conventional hotel, yet they deliver more in terms of returns per square foot because of the way the economic model works. That’s particularly interesting for us, because now when you’re a global player with 250 hotels open and in the pipeline, it allows you to access a wider market base, but also propel this idea of lifestyle much faster.

Ennismore Design Studio and Fettle Design collaborated on the public spaces at the Hoxton, Rome, including the West Coast-inspired Beverly restaurant
What is the biggest asset of having all of these lifestyle brands?
We have a collection of founders who are very involved in the business—whether it’s Christoph Hoffmann, who is still driving the 25hours brand, or Jeremy and Serge Trigano with Mama Shelter. That allows us to ensure the relevance of these brands continues. For other brands, we go back to where it all began and reimagine these spaces. [For example], Gleneagles is a 100-year-old estate, which we took over in 2015. We went back to the 1920s and the archives to reimagine why it was first conceived and what made it different from the other incredible estates not just in Scotland, but across Europe.
How do you hope to grow and differentiate these brands?
We have an incredible opportunity to take the essence of what these brands are, why they existed in the first place, and propel them forward, especially in a world where there is so much choice. My role is to ensure that every one of our brands continues to have a mission and a purpose, and that we’re building spaces people can physically and emotionally connect with. For 10 years, our in-house design team has been obsessing about each and every aspect of the creative process and the design experience. For the Hoxton, it’s about supporting local communities and doing all we can to be good neighbors. It’s ensuring that there’s a social and environmental conscience to everything we do. We’re thinking long and hard about how we can make a difference in our own way in each of the neighborhoods and cities we call home.

Bold patterns collide in the lobby of the Dion & Arles-designed Mama Shelter London
How has the Working From_ coworking brand evolved?
Working From_ was born in the Hoxton properties in London and in Chicago. What was incredible about that business, certainly during the pandemic, was to see how people valued flexibility and community. We have about 750 coworking desks in London and about 400 in Chicago. We’re at 100 percent occupancy with a waiting list of a few hundred across both locations. This idea was born out of the Hoxton lobby, which is when we realized we’d been in the coworking business for 10 years, we just never charged anyone for it. We’re evolving Working From_ to now extend across all our brands. What does Working From_ in the Mondrian look and feel like versus the SLS? One of the things that’s undeniable in this post-pandemic world is this idea of flexibility. It’s something the Hoxton has been championing for years with flexi-time, which we launched in 2019. Who says you need to check in at 3 p.m. and check out midday? We manage our inventory in a way that allows us to make sure people can check in and out when they want to for no extra cost.
Gleneagles Townhouse is opening soon in Edinburgh. How will it reflect the original property?
It’s the first time we’ve taken the Gleneagles brand outside of the Perthshire Hills in Scotland in 100 years. We took over this beautiful Bank of Scotland building in St Andrew Square a few years ago and have been reimagining what Gleneagles in an urban building with an incredible history would look and feel like. Taking this amazing legacy and building on it is a huge moment. As much as we love modern contemporary steel and glass boxes, that wouldn’t be fitting for Gleneagles. It helps when you have an old, majestic building to have fun with. Equally, it’s also fun to take a big box and inject a bit of soul into it, which we’ve done a handful of times with Hoxton, including in Barcelona, where we spent the last 12 to 18 months renovating and converting an old hotel into the Hoxton, Poblenou. It’s going to be a hotel like Barcelona’s never seen before. Those are two very different projects, but we inject the thinking and programming and fun in the same way.

Ennismore Design Studio recently revamped the lobby of the Hoxton, Holborn in London with pink and ruby red touches
Can you give us a preview of the Maison Delano brand, which debuts in Paris this year?
The Delano had a big moment in history in the world of lifestyle hotels in Miami all those years ago. How do you take something that’s iconic on the beach and urbanize it in a way that reflects that spirit? It helps that we have a gorgeous building in the heart of Paris, which is just awe-inspiring—with the most incredible central courtyard and an amazing restaurant.
How have the past two years changed you as a leader?
The human story has impacted me the most. Seeing our teams having to close hotels, reopen hotels, make some difficult decisions with staff and with properties—that’s been challenging. I don’t think anyone in the industry ever wrote a business plan that took occupancy down to zero. You never think this will ever happen. I don’t take anything for granted.
This article originally appeared in HD’s April 2022 issue.