Aman

Aman runs 35 hotels and resorts across 20 countries, and over three decades the name has come to stand for a particular kind of luxury: quiet, private, and built around space rather than show. Rooms are large, staff outnumber guests, and the design usually disappears into its setting instead of competing with it. If you have stayed at one Aman, the surprise at the next is how steady the standard stays even when the landscape changes completely.

Service is where the brand separates itself. Staff-to-guest ratios are high, and the style is anticipatory rather than formal, so requests tend to be handled before they are made and without ceremony. Because so many guests return, and often move between properties, the group runs on recognition and long relationships rather than a script, which is why the experience feels personal even at a brand this size.

That range is the real draw. Amanpuri sits above a beach in Phuket, Amangiri is cut into the red rock at Canyon Point in Utah, and Amankora moves guests between lodges across the valleys of Bhutan. The group also runs city hotels that quietly outclass their neighbours, among them Aman Tokyo, Aman New York, and Aman Venice. Booking an Aman is less about picking a hotel than deciding which landscape you want to wake up in, since the level of care travels with the name.

The architecture follows one rule, which is to belong to the place. Amanvari, the group's property on Baja's East Cape, is described as sitting where the desert, mountain, and ocean landscapes meet, and that instinct for reading a site runs through the whole portfolio. Buildings stay low, materials are local, and the view does the talking rather than the lobby.

Wellness is central rather than an add-on. The Aman Spa appears across the group, including at The Connaught in London, and the brand has begun running structured programmes, among them a three-day wellness plan put together with Novak Djokovic as a wellness advisor that pairs proper training with recovery. It reads as a serious offer, not a token treatment menu tacked onto the room rate.

The company is also expanding in a way that tells you where it thinks luxury is heading. Amanvari opens on 1 August 2026. Aman at Sea launches its first ship, Amangati, into Caribbean service in autumn 2027, taking the brand onto the water for the first time. On land, new properties are due in Miami Beach and Beverly Hills in 2027, with Aman Niseko planned for 2030. For a group that could coast on its name, that is a lot of considered growth rather than franchising.

The honest caveat is that none of this is cheap, and Aman is deliberately understated. There are no crowds, no scene, and little of the noise some people want from a flagship hotel, so if you are chasing buzz you will find the calm underwhelming. For everyone else, Aman remains the reference point at the top of the resort market, the standard other brands are measured against, and it earns that position at almost every property that carries the name.