When Ian Schrager created the ‘boutique resort’ idea – first with Andrée Putman at Morgans in 1984, then with Philippe Starck on the Royalton, Delano, and extra – he launched a five-decade transformation of the world’s gateway cities. Fashionable lobbies, vacation spot eating places, and rooftop bars grew to become magnets for travellers and locals alike, redefining city hospitality from New York to London, Miami to Paris. However São Paulo, one of many world’s largest and most dynamic city centres, remained an outlier. For many years, this metropolis of 20 million had solely a handful of boutique properties that captured its cultural power and met the worldwide customary for classy travellers.
However on the current South American Resort Funding Convention in Rio de Janeiro, business professionals had been discussing what has develop into a increase in high-end resort growth in Brazil – and the best way to hold it going within the face of warfare and different geopolitical dangers, rising power prices, and stubbornly excessive rates of interest.
Regardless of headwinds, each new and outdated, Brazil has greater than 150 upscale and luxurious resort tasks which have not too long ago opened or are at present in growth, in accordance with business reviews – a stark distinction to the high-profile handful that outlined the market simply 5 years in the past.
The momentum behind Brazil’s resort growth
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Arthur Casas)
São Paulo’s boutique resort market began with the Emiliano in 2001, town’s first true luxurious boutique resort, launched by the Filgueiras household within the unique neighbourhood of Jardins and designed by Arthur Casas. Only a yr later got here the Resort Distinctive, an iconic constructing and boutique resort by Ruy Ohtake – its ‘distinctive’ type nonetheless serving to to outline the cityscape. In 2003, the unique Fasano Resort São Paulo opened – designed by then-partners Isay Weinfeld and Marcio Kogan – a timeless, luxurious masterpiece that honours the Fasano household’s four-generation legacy as Brazil’s most interesting restaurateurs.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Rosewood)
For over 20 years, these had been the one unbiased properties that mirrored native character and met the worldwide customary for a luxurious boutique journey expertise – largely resulting from market circumstances that contributed to shaky investor confidence – each overseas and home – within the Brazilian resort area.
However when French developer Alexandre Allard launched the Rosewood São Paulo in January 2022 – designed by Philippe Starck – the property grew to become the tipping level for the Brazilian resort market. Shortly after, in 2023, Fasano added a second resort and branded residences – virtually 20 years to the day of the unique Fasano launch – designed by Studio MK27, within the buzzing neighbourhood of Itaim. Then, in early 2024, hotelier Otávio Suriani launched the Pulso Resort within the Pinheiros neighbourhood, additionally designed by Arthur Casas. Suriani can also be creating a second Pulso Resort in São Paulo, set to open in 2029.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Fasano São Paulo Itaim)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Fasano São Paulo Itaim)
These properties had been simply the beginning of a pipeline that seemingly has no finish in sight – the results of main shifts within the Brazilian market. ‘Three forces have converged to remodel Brazil’s resort market. First, home institutional funding funds and REITs – now totally regulated and energetic on Brazil’s B3, the second-largest within the Americas – gave builders a transparent exit technique. Second, post-pandemic home tourism hit file highs. Third, worldwide capital lastly seen Brazil as a steady wager for luxurious hospitality investments,’ says Laurent DeKousmaeker, head of Latin American Growth at Marriott Worldwide.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Arthur Casas)
DeKousmaeker launched São Paulo’s first W Resort in early 2025, and an formidable new Westin idea by Brazilian architect Jayme Bernardo in June of the identical yr. He and his companions are planning 98 new accommodations in Brazil over the subsequent 5 years. The opposite main manufacturers have equally formidable plans with their growth companions.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of W Inns)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of W Inns)
However maybe no single developer is as bullish on Brazil as Alexandre Allard, who launched Soho Home São Paulo in 2024, subsequent to his personal Rosewood property, each positioned simply off iconic Avenida Paulista. He’s additionally launching his personal luxurious resort model, Allard, with properties below growth in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, each designed by Arthur Casas.
(Picture credit score: Blackhaus)
Past Allard, Rio de Janeiro’s resort pipeline is strong. 4 Seasons Inns and Resorts not too long ago introduced a whole renovation of Ipanema’s Marina Palace Resort, anticipated to open in 2029, and Patricia Anastassiadis has designed a sublime rework of the Sofitel Rio de Janeiro Ipanema, scheduled to open in November 2026. Simply 45km exterior Rio, in Maricá, native builders Maraey have partnered with Marriott Worldwide to create an environmentally and socially accountable vacation spot resort advanced, together with a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, a JW Marriott, and a resort themed after the Rock in Rio, a part of Marriott’s Autograph Assortment, all opening in late 2026.
The Ritz-Carlton Reserve at Maraey
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton)
Additionally not removed from Rio, the Emiliano Resort Paraty is below growth within the namesake historic colonial city and Unesco World Heritage Web site that is a crucial a part of Brazilian historical past. With structure by Norman Foster and interiors by Patricia Anastassiadis, the venture exemplifies one more reason for the rise in ‘new’ resort tasks.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Sofitel)
‘There are some actually particular tasks that had been began years in the past, and it took a very long time to get via Brazil’s environmental approvals course of. These are additionally coming on-line now, including to the momentum we’re seeing out there. The Emiliano Paraty is over 15 years within the making – arduous to imagine for these exterior Brazil, however that has been the truth right here,’ says Gustavo Filgueiras. We first reported on Emiliano Paraty in our June 2010 Born in Brazil subject.
‘It isn’t simply São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro which can be booming,’ DeKousmaeker provides. ‘Secondary markets within the Northeast, the Central-West, and the South are effervescent too. It’s virtually in all places. It’s an thrilling time for hospitality in Brazil.’
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of 4 Seasons Inns)
In Ceará, on Brazil’s northeast coast, the Mana Resort Cumbuco exemplifies this secondary-market momentum, bringing up to date Brazilian design to one of many nation’s most spectacular seashore locations. Designed by Guilherme Torres, it’s an instance of how subtle, but domestically related properties are proliferating in places as soon as neglected by luxurious travellers. Torres is making use of the identical trendy gestalt, articulated in humble, native supplies, on his second resort within the space, the Silêncio Resort, the place carnauba straw roofs and hand-packed mud partitions body an open-air structure designed for Ceará’s year-round heat.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Mana Resort Cumbuco)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Mana Resort Cumbuco)
The Central-West area, which incorporates the farmlands on the tropical savanna round Brasília and the southernmost portion of the Amazon, can also be seeing unprecedented growth exercise. Maybe probably the most luxurious addition deliberate is Arthur Casas’ luxurious boutique resort within the completely preserved city of Belterra, Pará. The resort is at present being crafted from restored homes constructed by Henry Ford as a part of a serious space of revival anchored by the brand new Museum of Amazonian Science (featured within the Might 2023 subject of Wallpaper*). Ford constructed a whole city of matching inexperienced and white buildings in 1934 to assist rubber farming actions for his factories, all within the model of his hometown of Dearborn, Michigan. Ford’s rubber empire collapsed inside a decade, however Belterra’s Midwestern American structure – preserved as a nationwide heritage web site – now presents one in all Brazil’s most surreal juxtapositions: white clapboard homes with entrance porches adjoining to the Tapajós River and the Amazon forest.
The Museum of Amazonian Science
(Picture credit score: Maira Acayaba)
The southern area of Santa Catarina is a hotbed for growth too, highlighted by a high-profile conversion simply exterior the state capital and a sublime new-build launch by a well-recognized title, close to an up-and-coming metropolis. In November 2025, the famend Ponta dos Ganchos Resort grew to become Awasi Santa Catarina, bringing the Chilean luxurious model’s adventure-driven idea – that includes non-public nature guides and private 4×4 automobiles – to Brazil’s protected Atlantic Rainforest, close to the more and more widespread metropolis of Florianópolis. Yet one more Emiliano Resort is below development right here, too. The venture is north of Florianópolis, in Santa Catarina, exterior of Balneário Camboriú, town generally known as the ‘Dubai of Brazil’ for its personal constructing increase. The Emiliano Santa Catarina additionally options structure by Norman Foster and beautiful interiors by Patricia Anastassiadis, and can embrace each a resort and luxurious residences.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Awasi Santa Catarina)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Awasi Santa Catarina)
The increase indicators extra than simply resort growth – it displays Brazil’s emergence as a mature luxurious market able to supporting the sort of design-driven hospitality that has lengthy outlined world gateway cities. For the primary time, Brazilian cities can compete not simply on value or exoticism, however on design, service, and model status. Whereas Brazil’s resort increase consists of each worldwide and home manufacturers that ship all three, there is just one homegrown firm that’s doing so overseas.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Emiliano)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Emiliano)
After opening in unique Brazilian locations similar to Angra dos Reis and Trancoso, Fasano Inns has expanded overseas. That development began in 2010 with a property designed by Isay Weinfeld within the stylish summer season playground of Punta del Este, Uruguay, then New York Metropolis, and now there’s a beachfront Miami property below development – all below the management of companion and head of resort growth Constantino Regis Bittencourt.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of fasano)
Constantino Regis Bittencourt and Gero Fasano are additionally coming into Europe, with tasks underway in London, Cascais, Sardinia, and Milan, which marks the household’s return residence, 4 generations after leaving for Brazil in 1902. With the acquisition of the Sixteenth-century Palazzo Taverna within the metropolis’s Quadrilatero della Moda, or Style District, the venture marks a full-circle second for the model and indicators that Fasano is rapidly rising into a worldwide luxurious model to rival lots of the conventional names. However not like its world rivals, Fasano is already established in nearly all of Brazil’s greatest locations. The group stays really unbiased, and its celebrated 124-year culinary historical past has develop into the final word aggressive benefit, proving that Brazilian hospitality can compete on the world stage, even when the house market remains to be catching up.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of fasano)
Supply: Wallpaper
