New downtown luxury hotel shows how brands sell Austin in 2022

On Monday, 1 Resorts declared it was building one of its luxury motels in Austin, established to open up in 2026. The announcement from S&H Resorts, the Los Angeles-based company that operates 1 Hotels, properly done new-make Austin bingo: it used the phrase “combined-use,” talked about Austin Metropolis Limits, and claimed the 74-story tower in which it will reside will be the biggest in Texas on completion. 

With no delving into no matter whether Austin requirements a new, tremendous downtown luxury hotel amid a housing disaster, or the vagueness of professing a window into Austin Metropolis Limits (the competition, the downtown venue, or the tv exhibit?), the launch was remarkable for its slurry of Austin-distinct buzzwords and phrases. 1 in distinct stands out.

Gaze on this sentence in awe: “Texas-tough, contemporary-chic visitor rooms aspect furnishings that combine cowboy craftsmanship with the advanced tone and tenor of a tech-savvy town.”



This Mad Lib evokes, in purchase, a muddy Ford F-150, the incoming Hermès retailer on South CongressLonesome Dove, and Elon Musk and his several Central Texas problems. It is really a breathtaking journey, seriously.

With no invoking Webster’s Dictionary, this is, of study course, what advertising and marketing is: promoting one thing to precise demographics making use of targeted pictures and phrases. Those people indicators are intended to support Austinites and its normal people visualize a house in lieu of a rendering. But it also begs the problem, who is that for? 

And on a broader scale, what does that suggest about how manufacturers sell on their own to — and in — Austin? Is this how the environment sees our city now? 

Perhaps this is the ideal 1 Hotel Austin vacationer. 

Potentially this is the excellent 1 Lodge Austin vacationer. 

Jeremy Moeller/Getty Photos

For comparison, I appeared at the PR language employed for the new 1 Lodge in San Francisco, declared just five times in the past. San Francisco is characterized as a “vivid and eclectic town” that has “long been at the forefront of driving sustainable change in architecture and design and style.”

Tackling the initially phrase, this is PR-speak for the city’s massive LGBTQ populace. Extra intriguing for this exercise, even though, when seen by the lens of the metropolis in which I reside, is the San Francisco release’s recurring use of the words and phrases “layout” and “architecture.” 

San Francisco is, of study course, a renowned American architectural metropolis. Aside from longstanding icons like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of Good Arts, San Francisco has a prosperity of Victorian and modernist and Tudor structures that dot the city. It truly is no wonder the ad wizards who waved their wands about this release pushed this angle.

Taken holistically, this indicates that in offering the notion of San Francisco to probable clients — and to the metropolis alone — the proprietors of Lodge 1 believe that that what tends to make San Francisco exclusive is its standing as a numerous, outré, and architecturally wonderful town. Fairly uncomplicated.

Transferring into Texas, I seemed up a smattering of latest luxury hotel push releases for San Antonio, the closest metropolis to Austin. But even just an hour or so down I-35, the language is absolutely unique. The huge buzzword in providing luxurious to San Antonio is “historical past,” owing, of system, to the Alamo. 

“Guests will be inspired by The Otis Resort San Antonio’s historic influences,” and the Thompson Resort is occupied “capturing the present-day spirit of this historic Texas metropolis,” according to respective push releases. When selling luxury lodging to San Antonio, it truly is important to express that the Alamo exists. Once more, this mainly will make feeling. When imagining about our lodge, try to remember the Alamo.

It really is more complicated to comprehend what the Austin release says and what the environment thinks about our fair town. 

Rainey Street, re-arranging once again.

Rainey Avenue, re-arranging the moment again.

Amy E. Cost/Getty Photographs for SXSW

The only point out of style or architecture is at the release’s footer, in which Hotel 1 describes by itself as a purveyor of “sustainable style and design and architecture.” Honest sufficient, as Austin isn’t really especially acknowledged for its attractive bridges or modernist towers, a type way of putting it, to be certain.

And nowhere is history talked about, other than in describing Rainey Street, which, in all fairness, is technically a historic district but retains pretty much none of the history (or people) that built it so.

The Austin press release depends on some amalgamation of the reduced-brow and superior-brow, like a bloomin’ onion smothered in beluga caviar. Hotel 1 will slot suitable into Austin for the reason that it can be macho, but extravagant and highly-priced.

It is really genuine like a cowboy but constructed for tech geeks. With this numerous inverses, it is extremely hard to extract any kind of definition of the metropolis. Ten several years ago, this push launch would have hammered residence “weirdness” and stay blues. Right now, Austin has way too several identities to maintain straight. 

This is not to say that any 1 sort of man or woman life in Austin, or that marketers need to cater to any a person demographic. It is just that this push release reveals that nobody, not even all those compensated to define it, is aware what Austin is in 2022. 

If you find the 6G bronc buster decked out in Celine and unlocking his Cyber Truck in Tarrytown, while, enable me know.