Digital concierge Porter & Sail has launched its latest location, Barcelona, with 6 of the city’s hottest hotels: Casa Bonay, Margot House, Grand Hotel Central Barcelona, Yurbban Trafalgar Hotel, Hotel Neri, and Destination BCN.
Porter & Sail curates an astute and high-tech city guide, and enables local insiders—including film director Isabel Coixet and star chef Alan Stewart—to lead visitors through the twists and tastes of their own Barcelona, in a data-driven app that is proving addictive.
“I’m truly excited to be in Barcelona as it experiences a renaissance of creative energy and international interest,” says Caitlin Zaino, co-founder and CEO of Porter & Sail. “The world’s coolest hotel brands are coming. Google has just opened up. There’s an explosion of local craft and entrepreneurship. And Porter & Sail is helping to define a new class of hotel for the city.”
Catalonia’s seaside capital is having a moment. Leading brands like EDITION, Soho House and Hyatt are opening new properties in Barcelona, alongside a slew of original, design-forward luxury boutique hotels like Casa Bonay and Margot House. ‘Authentic’, ‘chic’ and ‘local’ are the buzzwords of this new hotel wave.
One of the world’s top tourism cities, Barcelona sees more than seven million visitors a year and clocks over eight million hotel stays. The city boasts fabled architecture, boundless culture, and 2,000 years of history—as well as an ever-evolving and dynamic dining scene. New restaurants and bars include La Esquina, Alan Stewart’s artisanal all-day eatery, and Paradiso, a secret bar hidden behind a refrigerator door.
Porter & Sail ushers in a new era of hotel concierge, combining smart mobile functionality with dynamic, customized city guides. Aimed at leading lifestyle hotels, the sleekly designed app turns guests’ off-property experience into the hotel’s strongest amenity. The Porter & Sail app reimagines the city guide concept as a 21st century hotel-guest touch-point—one that speaks directly to the guest, like the concierge used to. Hotel guest users spend a whopping average of 35 minutes in the app.” Examining activity in app, Porter & Sail can ever better align the hotel and guests’ interests.
Wholly independent, highly insider content comes from local experts and tastemakers on the ground, combined into a set of eating, drinking, shopping, arts, and experiences. More than 40 places (from haute to hole-in-the-wall) are featured in the Barcelona guide, with new places added regularly. All writing and photography is original, shot or penned exclusively for the app.
Porter & Sail takes content delivery into the future. Content is location and time-sensitive; it is data driven and highly actionable. In app, guests can: see what’s good nearby, browse by neighborhood, read insider tips, view photographs, favorite a spot, map it, add it to their personal itinerary, and make a restaurant reservation. Guests can also use the app to explore their hotel, communicate with the staff, order room service, and even check in and out. It’s like having the concierge available 24/7 and in your pocket.
Access to the app is granted exclusively to guests of Porter & Sail partner hotels in Barcelona, London, Singapore, Miami and Los Angeles. Hotel partners include Soho Beach House in Miami and The Zetter Townhouses and Hotel in London, with New York City and Berlin launching in the coming weeks.
