Picture this...
Picture this. You've just arrived at a stunning luxury resort nestled in the Sonoran Desert. Exactly the kind of destination, in fact, that you'd love to find your products featured...
You've packed everything you need to make a great impression – and, thankfully, remembered the evening wear too.
Everything has already been taken care of. Your room is ready, your meetings are scheduled, and your itinerary is waiting for you.
You head over to the organiser’s welcome desk where you get a genuine warm welcome from one of those helpful ‘BONDies’ who seem to be just wherever they need to be and nowhere else. Warm. Professional. Relaxed. Nice start.
Weeks before arriving, you received a list of the luxury hotel designers you'll be meeting – decision-makers who are notoriously difficult to access – giving you plenty of time to do your homework.
You’ve got an idea of what they’re working on and the questions you want to ask them. Bit of first night nerves, naturally, but you are ready and you’re excited.
This is how most people feel when they arrive at their first BOND Five Star USA (or Five Star LatAm or Five Star EMEA).
Unlike any 'other' hotel design trade show or conference, you’ve received detailed profiles on everyone who’s going to be here and you’ve got a whole series of 1-on-1 meetings set up with your best prospects over the next two days. And then there's all that networking.
And this isn’t the usual, pressured ‘try to say hello to as many people as you dare in an hour’ type of networking – this is going to be more… relaxed. Natural. So it won't even feel like networking.
Quality time with North America's most in-demand luxury hotel designers
The highlight for me was the quality of architects and the connections made.
Mike Conway, Infratech, Director of National Accounts
It started on the bus on the way to the Scottsdale museum of Contemporary Art. Before you've even arrived, conversations are flowing naturally with the group around you. By the time you're being guided through the galleries, you're no longer introducing yourself to strangers – you're continuing conversations with people you've already connected with.
Later, over dinner, you find yourself chatting to the person next to you. One conversation leads to another and, before long, you've made a connection that could influence your business for years to come.
Or, as you’re taking that habitual glance at your phone and someone taps you on the shoulder to introduce you to someone who’s mentioned they’re looking for that very thing that you’re developing right now. And that person just happens to be a Principal at the firm you’ve been wanting to work with forever…
This is what happens when the hard work of identifying, inviting and flying out North America’s most in-demand top-end luxury hotel designers has all been done for you so you can simply do your prep, turn up, be your most charming, natural self and get talking to folks.
Because, when you take these time-pressured decision-makers away from daily distractions, they’re more present, more relaxed, and more open than you’ll find them anywhere else.
Conversations flow more freely and real connections and friendships start to happen. Three days here can be more productive and far more fun than months and months of trying to get in front of a single decision-maker under your own steam.
All Principals and practice leaders with top-end luxury hotel projects
More than 60 of North America’s most influential luxury hotel interior designers and architects attended this year.
And what sets BOND Five Star apart from all other hotel design events is the quality of those decision-makers: each and every one of them is at Principal, practice leader or Design Director level so the conversations you have, and the impression you make, can open doors at firms you’ve been trying to get inside of for years.
Shall we look at who was there? Here is a small sample from the confirmed attendee list:
Hilari Jones
Studio Design Leader, Hospitality
Principal
HKS
Derek Sola
Principal
JCJ Architecture
Craig Wora
Founder & Principal
Lujo Collective
Miriam Torres
Founding Partner
Parker-Torres Design
Liza Koeda
Principal of Interior Design
5G Studio Collaborative
Hogan Chun
Design Director - SouthWest Regional Hospitality Leader
Gensler
If you want to see the full attendee list, please email Jenny.
We will let the list speak for itself.
Large-scale luxury hotel projects throughout North America
BOND’s strict selection criteria means that every attending hotel designer had to evidence a portfolio of live, confirmed luxury hotel projects and be actively specifying for those projects.
Rather than leaving valuable conversations to chance, manufacturers could identify the designers most relevant to their business. Reading this would help too:
3 precious days - make them count
Here’s a small selection from the dozens of large-scale luxury hotel projects that were on the table at BOND Five Star this year. If you'd like to see the complete list, let us know who you are here, and we’ll be in touch.
Project Name – Town, State, Country – Size (sqft/rooms) – Completion – Project Type
305 South Congress - Austin, TX, USA - 650,000 - 2030 for Phase 1 - Hotel/Resort
Autograph Hotel at the Calgary Stampede - Calgary, AB, Canada - 515,000 – 2028
Four Seasons Tropicalia - Playa Esmeralda, Dominican Republic - 2.61m - 2026 - Boutique Hotel
Grand Park Royal Cancun - Cancun, Mexico - 345 Keys - 2028 - Hotel/Resort
Hilton Signia Savannah - Savannah, GA, USA - 400,000 - 2027 - Hotel/Resort
Hotel Renovation in South Beach Miami - Miami, FL, USA - 9,000,000 - 2027 - Hotel/Resort
Omni Grove Park Inn - Ashville, NC, USA – 615,000 - 2027 - Hotel/Resort
Waldorf Astoria Residences, St. Petersburg - St. Petersburg, FL, USA - 460,000 - 2029 - Villa/Residences
1447 1-on-1 meetings
Over the two business days, a total of 1447 1-on-1 meetings took place between the attending hotel designers and manufacturers. That’s 1447 conversations, each of which were far more likely to positively impact project pipelines than random conversations at other, less targeted events.
In fact, over two days at BOND Five Star, attending manufacturers had more 1-on-1 meetings with real decision- makers than they would normally manage to achieve in months – even years! And every one of those meetings ran on time, without interruptions, and with nobody sending a junior colleague to cover for them at the last minute.
"My meetings with the specifiers were all very engaging. I left this year's BOND with immediate project opportunities and a lot of new friendships were formed."
Chris Fletcher, VP, Harmonic Wine Displays
The meetings are just the start
The meetings really are just the start. A thoughtfully curated program of relaxed networking activities soon breaks any lingering patches of ice, helping everyone find their natural networking flow.
Once again, North America's most influential hotel design community comes together, creating the environment where the right conversations happen naturally – connecting the people specifying projects with the suppliers shaping them.
The venue helps too – a big BOND thank you must go to the Forbes-rated Phoenician at Scotsdale for hosting us this year.
There's something about a luxury hospitality environment that gets the details just right. Add unforgettable evenings like the duelling pianos at The Phoenician Tavern, and you've created the kind of atmosphere where the best conversations happen naturally.
And it’s no surprise to those who know BOND’s founder Oliver ‘Olly’ Needs (see BOND: Origins), that he couldn’t resist the temptation to jump on one of the pianos himself and raise the duelling to another level.
An atmosphere impossible to convey
Things happen at BOND Five Star. And, although it’s not quite on the level of ‘what happens at Five Star stays at Five Star’, the atmosphere and the potential of being amongst America's most sought-after hotel designers at the top of their game for three whole days and nights in a luxury setting is impossible to convey.
The people with the projects you want in on are here and they are more relaxed and open than you’ll find them anywhere else.
And, if you take a genuine interest in who’s going to be here and turn up as your most curious and helpful self, you can leave the sales pitch behind.
Because these are just people like you and I, each with their own story to share and who like to get to know a person before any notion of working together can be meaningfully explored.
If you believe your products deserve a place in America's most spectacular luxury hotel projects, BOND Five Star will give you unprecedented access to the people who can make that happen. What you make of that is up to you.
BOND Five Star USA 2027 is happening on June 24-27, 2027, venue tbc. For more information on who’s coming, how it works and what you can achieve, please get in touch.
The following stats and comments were taken from the onsite survey that all attendees were asked to complete, and from comments made on LinkedIn around the event.
Hotel Designers
How do you rate BOND Five Star USA 2026 overall? 4.8/5
How would you rate the customer service you received prior to the event? 4.7/5
How do you rate the management and coordination from the BOND Team onsite? 4.8/5
How likely are you to recommend BOND Five Star USA to your peers and colleagues? 90%
Suppliers
How do you rate BOND Five Star USA 2026 overall? 4.8/5
How would you rate the customer service you received prior to the event? 4.95/5
How do you rate the management and coordination from the BOND Team onsite? 4.9/5
How do you rate the quality and variety of the Architects & Designers in attendance? 4.75/5
