Luxury has become the most abused word in hospitality. It’s been stretched, diluted, and slapped on everything from business hotels with bigger lobby chairs to cookie-cutter towers with a scented candle at check-in.

True luxury doesn’t multiply like rabbits. It compounds like art. Scarcity, memory, identity — those are the currencies. Not logos, not slogans, not the latest ‘collection’ invented in a corporate boardroom.

Chains love to announce “new luxury flags.” Why? Because it looks good in a press release and makes investors believe they’re moving upscale. But adding a robe to a midmarket box doesn’t transform it into the Park Hotel Vitznau. Putting a rain shower in a Marriott doesn’t make it Cheval Blanc.

Here’s the truth nobody at HQ wants to hear:

• Luxury cannot be mass-produced.
• Luxury cannot be replicated at scale.
• Luxury cannot be franchised into oblivion.

The market knows this instinctively. Guests don’t Instagram their “Luxury Collection” key card. They tell stories about breakfast looking out over the Mara at Angama. They remember the detail at Cheval Blanc. They talk about a night under the stars at Longitude 131°.

There’s a reason true luxury assets trade at multiples that make Wall Street analysts choke. They’re not boxes to fill — they’re cultural lodestones. They hold rate when everything else collapses. They widen the gap while the fake-luxury crowd treads water.

So the next time you hear about another “luxury brand launch” from a chain, remember: It isn’t luxury. It’s marketing theater with a flag attached.

And while the majors keep diluting the word, those of us playing at the top know the truth: real luxury doesn’t need a brand announcement. It only needs to exist — and the world beats a path to its door.