The Global Consultant is Hotel Management’s monthly contributed column featuring insights from members of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC). Each installment explores the trends, challenges and opportunities shaping the hospitality industry.
Back in the 1980s, my family owned a wine shop on the plaza in Healdsburg, Calif. It was a sleepy Sonoma County agricultural town, where a field hand’s El Camino was more common on the square than a limo. The west side of the plaza held a long-vacant lot, with hotel plans that ebbed and flowed for nearly two decades before Hotel Healdsburg opened in 2001.
With chef Charlie Palmer as a partner and Dry Creek Kitchen as a culinary anchor, the new hotel helped usher in a remarkable transformation. Today, Healdsburg ranks among California’s leading destinations, with Michelin-starred restaurants, acclaimed hotels and a charming town square that anchors a thriving mix of shops, tasting rooms, restaurants and gathering places.
Healdsburg is an unusually successful example, but it points to a broader opportunity. In smaller American towns with compelling natural, cultural or historic assets, a distinctive hotel can do more than accommodate demand. It can help create it, giving travelers a reason to stay, supporting neighboring businesses and opening a front door to overlooked communities.
Tertiary Market Trends
There has been plenty of industry buzz around tertiary-market development. U.S. hotel conversions reached record levels in 2026, while CoStar/STR notes that small metropolitan markets contain more independent hotels than branded properties. Expedia, meanwhile, reported that 63 percent of consumers were likely to visit destinations that are “less well-known and less crowded.”
The bigger story is what a distinctive lifestyle hotel can do with that opportunity. In smaller markets, it can anchor the community, creating spaces locals use while encouraging guests to explore beyond the property. That may sound counterintuitive in an industry focused on guest capture, but for a true local hero, the broader destination is part of the product. Supporting local chefs, makers and artists, and directing guests toward restaurants, wineries, trails and cultural institutions can strengthen hotel and town.
That is also where lifestyle hospitality has an advantage: It can be porous, place-specific and open to letting the community help shape guest experience. Recent EDG projects illustrate how owners are embracing this town-first approach.
The Stavrand Hotel Russian River Valley
Guerneville already had a strong identity, but lacked the elevated boutique stay found elsewhere in Sonoma County. “There certainly wasn’t one like this in Guerneville, where we could bring luxury to the redwood environs,” said Stavrand Co-Founder and General Manager Emily Glick.
For Glick, the opportunity was the richness of the destination itself: “not just vineyard, but also river, preserved forest and the Pacific Coast.” Rather than importing a conventional wine-country resort model, the 21-room hotel was conceived around what she calls “relaxed luxury,” embracing what is “authentic, grounded, warm and unpretentious about Guerneville.” It shows how lifestyle hospitality can elevate a destination without polishing away the character that made it compelling in the first place.
The Carlton Hotel, Atascadero
Atascadero sits between Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo. The restored Carlton, now a 63-room Tribute Portfolio hotel, gives visitors a reason to experience the town itself while preserving a local landmark.
Owner Kamal Patel saw public and private investment converging around the property. “The Carlton sits directly within that activity,” he said. Reinvesting downtown “allowed us to add density, preserve a landmark and direct the resulting guest activity into the heart of downtown.”
Patel sees the hotel as both social space and gateway. “An overnight stay changes a town from a stop into an experience,” he said. “The clearest test is whether residents who never book a guestroom still have reasons to come inside.”
Tribute Collection Marin, San Rafael
San Rafael links San Francisco, Wine Country, the West Marin coast and Mt. Tamalpais, yet its lodging offer has never fully reflected the character of Marin.
For investor, developer and hotelier Sam Suleman, executive vice president of Equinox Hospitality, a new Tribute Marin is intended to fill that gap while becoming part of the community. “Success with a Tribute Collection hotel is 100 percent about the locals,” he said. “It has to be a place where people want to hang out, where they want their friends and family to stay, and where local events can happen.”
Suleman envisions a “third place,” distinct from home and work, where food and beverage, music, the pool scene and local programming bring residents and visitors together. His ambition is to create “an established icon and anchor for Marin,” with a “bohemian, frankly Marin sensibility that is hard to describe, but you know it when you are in it.”
That means giving guests what Suleman calls “an authentic taste of Marin,” while using the hotel as a base for exploring the coast, Mt. Tam and wine country. Local chefs, purveyors, makers and events reinforce its role as both gateway and gathering place.
The Opportunity
For a small-town lifestyle hotel, this kind of local connection is not just good placemaking, it can be a competitive advantage. Hotels that become part of the community can build loyalty on both sides of the front door, draw local traffic beyond overnight guests, and give travelers a stronger reason to choose the destination in the first place. That is where the “local hero” can outperform: By becoming more relevant to residents, more memorable to visitors, and more valuable to the place around it.
Who knows where you’ll find the next Healdsburg? You may have just passed through on your way to somewhere else…
Patrick O’Hare, AIA, IIDA, ISHC, is a partner at EDG Interior Architecture + Design, where he focuses on hospitality strategy, positioning, design and food-and-beverage concepts for hotels and resorts.