[00:00:00] Diego Calvo: The main thing is to build something that you feel passion for. If you don’t feel the passion for it, then you need to find someone else that is having the passion. This is so important because if you don’t have passion for the thing you are preparing, then it will be not as good and as authentic as it should be.

[00:00:22] Intro: Welcome to the Hotel Moment Podcast presented by Revinate. This is your podcast to understand how technology can shape every moment of the hotelier’s experience. Tune in to explore cutting-edge technologies and to hear from experts who are shaping guest experiences. It’s 2026 and I’m Dylan Cole, the Managing Director of Revinate Europe. Along with Karen Stephens, we’ll be bringing you a fresh perspective on what matters most to hoteliers.

[00:01:00] Diego Calvo:  Welcome to Hotel Moment. Today we’re excited to welcome Diego Calvo, the CEO and co-founder of Concept Hotel Group, a collection of nine distinctive hotel brands built on the island of Ibiza, where Diego grew up. With 25 years in the industry and stints at Marriott and Hilton behind him, Diego went independent in 2013 with a clear vision to create hotels that are cultural destinations, not just places to sleep. Built around five pillars — art, fashion, design, music, and cinema — Concept Hotel Group has carved out a unique identity that drives strong direct bookings, deep community ties, and loyal repeat guests. Today, Diego is here to talk about brand storytelling, community-first hospitality, and building hotels with a genuine soul. Welcome to the show, Diego. It’s a pleasure to have you.

[00:01:40] Diego Calvo: Thank you very much for having me.

[00:01:42] Dylan Cole: And how are you today? You good?

[00:01:43] Diego Calvo: I’m good. We are in Ibiza getting ready for a new season. We’re opening the hotels in a couple of weeks again. So excited.

[00:01:51] Dylan Cole: Yeah, busy time ahead. I’m sure everybody’s excited and anticipating. Thank you, even though you’re busy, for joining us and taking time. I know people want to learn about you and learn about the incredible brand that you’ve built. And if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to start off just thinking a little bit about your brand and your experience. My first question is, if you wouldn’t mind, kind of sharing a little bit about your journey in hospitality — sort of from your early days working in international chains, and then the moment that you decided to take that big leap of faith and found Concept Hotel Group, if you wouldn’t mind.

[00:02:28] Diego Calvo: Yes. Well, I’ve been all my life in relation to hotels and music. I did hotel management in Mallorca, actually in the year 1998. I was born in Ibiza. I’m 45 now, and I’m a super passionate person for hotels and also for live music at the same time. We are also music promoters here in Ibiza. And basically after studying hotel management I did also a master’s in Barcelona. And I started to get experience in different hotel groups like Marriott, Hilton, NH. And then finally in 2006 I came back to Ibiza — it’s a place that I love. And I was so lucky to get a position managing a hotel. And after a few years, because I had a vision of how the hotel industry should be, no? And I had a few inspirations — basically from a hotel here that’s very legendary. It’s called Hotel Pikes, still running. And also everything that Ian Schrager was doing after Studio 54, like with the Royalton, the Delano, and all these places where socialising was part of the hotel experience. And so in 2013 I started my own hotel group with a good friend. We founded the company together. And then we’ve been going — so till COVID time we were growing quite fast, like a hotel per year. We developed in total nine hotel brands. And now for the last five years it’s just me and another partner, which is also a friend, called Marc Rahola. He also owns another hotel brand. So basically we partnered together and we are in a moment now where we’re going to open our hotel number ten next year. But the most important thing is not the number of hotels — it’s about the personality that each hotel is having, no, and how we develop the brands in such detail. I like to say “group” and not “chain” because every hotel is different. We create a very specific world for each brand, no?

[00:04:34] Dylan Cole: Yeah, right. There’s uniqueness amongst all your hotels. Despite there being ten, they’re not the same — they’re all different experiences.

[00:04:42] Diego Calvo: Exactly. That’s the objective. To be different is so important.

[00:04:46] Dylan Cole: And that’s kind of what I was thinking — as somebody that’s a local Ibiza native, you know, you built your career there, your connection to the island must be really strong, obviously. How has your connection to the island actually played into your vision for what a hotel can be? Are there specific things that a guest would see show up that would only exist because of your connection to the island?

[00:05:11] Diego Calvo: Well, yeah, I mean, I love Ibiza, no, it’s a super multicultural place where you find so much going on in a small place. I mean, the winter is quiet — I love the winter — but during the summer, our season goes from April to November and there’s so much going on. What I love the most about Ibiza is the freedom, no, the hedonism from the past that’s still alive, no? If we look at the hotels we create, to be honest, they are more referenced from other places in the world — a lot from the US. A lot of what the hotel brands in the US have been doing, like for example The Standard Hotels — a group with all these legendary places. Like the Chateau Marmont — I love the Madonna Inn. I mean, all these hotels have very good interior design, but at the same time are very strong in the content and in the cultural part. We have developed different brands — like we have Cubanito, which is like a Havana in the 50s, or we have Mongibello, that is like the Amalfi Coast, also 60s, 70s. I actually made a trip to the Amalfi Coast and looked at all these aspirational hotels like La Sirenuse or San Pietro in Positano. Now I just came back from the Pacific coast because we are preparing a brand for 2027 called Acapulco Amor. But basically my main inspiration was Boca Chica, the hotel from Grupo Habita, from my friend Carlos Couturier — I say hi from here. So that Pacific style is so strong. So we are preparing a hotel with that style, no, in terms of architecture and design. So I made a little trip to get inspiration because we work a lot on the little details. That’s how a brand feels more real — not only what you offer, also what you design, no? So important.

[00:07:01] Dylan Cole: So would it be safe to say — and my question is actually a little bit the reverse of the way I’ve asked it — you’re from there, but what you’ve kind of done is gone out and found things from around the world that you love and brought them to where you’re from.

[00:07:13] Diego Calvo: Yeah, actually yes. I mean, many people ask that because there was a time when I started the group, I saw that most of the hotels in Ibiza were looking very similar — very Mediterranean, very white, which I love. I mean, it’s a style that I also love, but I think I wanted to do something different, something that shows that it’s colorful, that attracts people who want to live a happy summer, let’s say, but is not like the others. So we tried to create places that were very colorful. I got also a lot of inspiration from all the classic Ocean Drive — I say more the architecture how it was in the past, the facades of the 50s. I know now it’s very different in terms of the people that are there in that area, but the architecture is so powerful — it’s very tropical, it’s colorful. So we did something very different to what you can find in Ibiza. But people loved it actually. So we continued, and every time we wanted to create a new hotel we said, okay, we have to stay true to what we love and be true — to be different and do things differently. Not only in terms of the design, also with the content.

[00:08:20] Dylan Cole: And where are you — like, just looking at you — people maybe listening won’t see it, but you’re such a cool, well-dressed guy. You have such great style, you have great taste. If they’re listening, they won’t know this, but I can see that you really care about your aesthetic. I can see the things you’ve chosen to be around your desk, right? Like, where do you get this from? Is this from your childhood? Were your parents very creative people? Like, where does this inspiration stem from?

[00:08:45] Diego Calvo: The decade I love the most is the seventies. Since I was twenty years old I’ve actually been collecting Western shirts, Hawaiian shirts. I have more than — you will not believe — I have around 700 pieces.

[00:08:59] Dylan Cole: I believe it.

[00:09:00] Diego Calvo: Too many. I mean, I don’t have — my wife, my sisters —

[00:09:03] Dylan Cole: Wait, did you say 700?

[00:09:06] Diego Calvo: 700. Oh my god. From movies like the Red Western — from True Romance — where I have a Hawaiian shirt from Tom Selleck from the series Magnum P.I. So, I think aesthetic is important and it’s just something I do because I love it, no. Actually the main office here in Ibiza of Concept Hotel Group is all inspired — I don’t know if you’ve seen the series Vinyl from Martin Scorsese, which is like a record company in the seventies in New York. So we were inspired by that series to design the office.

[00:09:39] Dylan Cole: That’s so cool. And it kind of leads me to my next question, by the way. So you have five pillars, right, in your group — art, fashion, design, music, and cinema. Exactly. And obviously I can see this inspiration in your office and in you, but how would a guest experience these pillars in their stay, if they’re staying at a Concept Hotel?

[00:10:01] Diego Calvo: Yeah, I mean — it’s not that everyone necessarily likes, let’s say, cinema. Actually, everyone likes cinema. But let’s say you don’t like cinema and then you go to, let’s say, Gran Paradiso — it’s a hotel we call the movie hotel. But if you don’t like that, you can still have a great time — I mean, it’s a great design, it’s a great hotel. So what we do is we choose one of the pillars and then we put it into the storytelling of the hotel. For example, Gran Paradiso has a super classic 30-seat cinema, and then for every room we pay tribute — so we sign a contract with a cinema director or a visual artist, someone that does, let’s say, video campaigns for big brands. So we sign a contract with them, and they provide us content for a gallery that we have in the hotel. And we have like eight TVs, so every month there are videos from these artists showing on the TVs. So you go and you see. And then also they have their own room. So it’s a way of providing content and storytelling to the brand. Now, the last hotel we opened is called Los Felices. Los Felices is actually a street in Palm Springs — I visited too. So all the architecture and design of this hotel is totally 70s Palm Springs, which I love — very colorful at the same time. But the concept of the hotel we call it the fashion hotel. And we also have different collaborations with fashion designers — actually 80 of them — who gave us fashion campaign photos that you can see in the corridors, in the rooms, also on a big screen with the fashion shows. So it’s basically these pillars — every pillar is in a different hotel, and that’s how we create the storytelling of each one.

[00:11:47] Dylan Cole: If you think about starting a property — and you can talk about the fashion hotel now that you’ve already designed it — what does the process look like of starting a new hotel, even from finding the building or the location, working with the architects, the designers, coming up with the theme? Can you take me through how you actually work through that process?

[00:12:07] Diego Calvo: Yeah, this for me is obviously the part I enjoy the most, but it’s so important to pay a lot of attention to this process because once you finish the building, then you kind of go backwards and redesign everything. It’s like when you design a car, no? You say, okay, we want the air conditioning here, so it’s going to be there forever. So there are many opportunities in the market — you can find buildings, hotels that you can rent or buy. But in my opinion, the process of providing a design and a concept to a hotel — all this process before you sit down with the interior designers or the architects — is everything. Well, I can show here — I have some projects on the table that I’m working on. So what we do is we find a place and we say, okay, in that place we imagine this type of hotel. Then when we start from there, we do a super long conceptual briefing of everything — not only interiors, colors, materials. In that conceptual briefing you will say, okay, which music do we like? What photos are going to be in the lobby? All the details. I mean, it’s like we start as a Ferrari and then maybe we finish somewhere else — okay? But very important is that process. So once it’s clear and we have an objective, then we sit down with the rest of the team — the technical team that will be working during the construction, the interior designers, the branding people, everyone. It’s actually the process I love the most, no? Having a little whiskey and then working the ideas.

[00:13:49] Dylan Cole: If you had to pick like one part of that decision-making process, is there one thing you like the most? Is it picking the music? Is it the photos? Or is it too hard to say?

[00:13:59] Diego Calvo: The concept. Which concept we do. The concept and the design — both of them.

[00:14:04] Dylan Cole: Very cool. I think that sounds great. So I guess you’re working through this with your new property that you’re going to open? Is that where you’re at in this phase?

[00:14:13] Diego Calvo: We are in a moment now where we’ve already finished the conceptual briefing — okay, with all the details — after my last trip, where I also took some new ideas. So now we’re in a moment where, once we finish all the conceptual briefing, we sit down. Now we have to finish the executive project and then we will start construction in October. That process is important, but also when we open the doors, it’s very important that we maintain the level of what we had in mind in terms of creating content all the time to stay alive. I think sometimes — especially now that there are so many brands being scaled so quickly — they show amazing renders, amazing materials, they open, but once they are open, sometimes some of them are a bit dead, you know — not dead, but with no soul. There’s no collective of people working around the brand. And keeping all of that alive is very important to keep working on.

[00:15:15] Dylan Cole: A hundred percent. It’s so much more than just the initial idea — throwing it together. Like you said, I’ve never personally built a hotel, but I can imagine you have to follow every step of the journey along the way, from the beginning to opening day and forever, actually, to make sure the heart stays alive. On that note, obviously at Revinate we think a lot about direct bookings, and one of the things that we know is that you’re doing about 35 to 40 percent direct bookings in your group. Is that right?

[00:15:44] Diego Calvo: Yes. Some hotels we do more — like the maximum we do is, for example, one hotel doing around 43 percent, and some other hotels we’re doing less. But this is something — I mean, the good thing is we are not like an international hotel group. I mean, we’re going to expand and open outside Ibiza also in the coming future. But being a local hotel group and being so strong on direct is also because the brand we develop is not that someone is looking — like they go into Booking.com and look for hotels, “I want to find a hotel in Ibiza or a hotel in Playa d’en Bossa,” and then they look at the photo and like it. No — they go into Google and they say, okay, I like Hotel Tropicana or I like Hotel Cubanito, because they want the experience. Maybe they will not book directly, but we are working on the brand. So one of the main objectives is we do as much direct as possible, no?

[00:16:36] Dylan Cole: And that’s what I was going to ask you, and I think you’ve kind of answered it here — but just to get even more specific, do you think that the cultural relevance that you’ve worked so hard to curate, and the programming that you’ve put into your properties, do you think that is what ultimately leads people to go and search you out directly?

[00:16:52] Diego Calvo: Good question. We’re doing some studies of our hotel guests, and I would say that around 15% of the people staying in the hotels is exactly the type of client that we would like to have, let’s say. Because they’re more cosmopolitan people who have an interest in cinema, fashion, music — okay — and they really want to be with us not only because of the design, but also because of what we offer and how we are as a brand. So we want to increase that. We are also working very hard to launch our loyalty plan, also with Revinate, at the beginning of April. So we are creating different levels, because we want the people to feel part not only of a loyalty plan — I want the people to feel part of the lifestyle we offer in the hotels. So we are starting with that plan now to increase also our direct sales.

[00:17:51] Dylan Cole: A hundred percent. It’s not like a points-based, travelling-for-business loyalty program — you’re trying to create a community. And from what I understand, the tiers are going to be called the Local, the Insider… am I allowed to say this? Is this a secret?

[00:18:06] Diego Calvo: You can say a hundred percent — we’re going to launch it. I mean, it’s going to be called the Concept Society, and we’re going to have the Insider, the Regular, the Resident, and the Collective. And then we have one special — the Local — because we do a lot of cultural events in the hotels, and there are people coming to our places that are not staying with us. They’re just from Ibiza and they come to our live music events or to our art exhibitions. So that will be just for the locals. But I think it’s very interesting because we are connecting — let’s say our Guestlist events platform — we are connecting this to Revinate so we can track how many times an external client is coming to our events, which is super interesting. And then we’re also doing the Collective level — this is going to be just people we choose because we say they can be like ambassadors for us. Like, let’s say I’m doing a trip and I’m meeting these cool artists — maybe they never stay with us, but it’s okay, you’re going to be in the Collective. People will be chosen one by one for the Collective. For the others — Resident will be like 20 room nights. I don’t — it’s just our way of doing things — but we see the number of nights as more important than the revenue production. Because maybe we have someone that really loves the brand, but they can only come in low season because they can’t afford coming in August. But I really appreciate that they’re coming back with us. So we’re creating the levels depending on the number of room nights.

[00:19:36] Dylan Cole: I understand. Because you don’t want to — just because of somebody’s budget, if they’re loyal, we want to respect that and make sure they’re being taken care of. And obviously you will be busier at certain times, which you should be — it’s the way it works. But how do you kind of manage that in your business — you have such swings in your seasons — and manage the expectations of guests? It’s the same property but then at a much different price point.

[00:20:12] Diego Calvo: It’s the market and supply and demand. We are every day looking at how the sales are going — it’s like how it goes today. So basically we’re very strong also in yield management, changing rates daily depending on demand. And we have a market which is under the brand of the Concept Hotels — this is more like four stars. And then we have the Mongibello brand. The Mongibello brand we plan to scale, and we are upgrading Mongibello this summer to five stars. So we are in a different market. Now that we are in Ibiza — it’s incredible. In the past, my partner Marc did a very good study of how the evolution of five-star hotels in Ibiza has been — it’s crazy. Back in the 90s we had one five-star — Cin Ibiza. Now we have around 36. So it’s crazy. So yeah, there’s a lot of competition. And we depend a lot on the airlines here in Ibiza. During the winter there are basically no planes. There are planes arriving, but like now — actually next week, 27th March — we’re going to start with some new operations. We open the hotels always beginning of April. So we’re always looking at arrivals, how are the prices, how are the competitors — trying to be very active in terms of increasing the ADR as much as we can. But as you said, we go from yeah, 170, 180, and then with Mongibello we can increase and reach like 700 a night. But yes, we tend to be very, very active also.

[00:21:46] Dylan Cole: So thank you for that, and I know you’re busy and you’ve got to get back to figuring out how to open up for the season. So I’m not going to keep you too much longer, but I would like to get one thing from you. So if there’s a hotelier out there that’s looking to build something as genuine as you have, and something with a cultural point of view — what is the one piece of advice that you would leave the listeners with today?

[00:22:11] Diego Calvo: First of all, I think the main thing is to build something that you feel passion for. If you don’t feel the passion for it, then you need to find someone else that is having the passion. This is so important because if you don’t have passion for the thing you are preparing, then it will be not as good and as authentic as it should be. But you can also build a team that feels passion for these things, no? I’m so lucky that I’m so passionate for hotels and for all the brands we are creating. So yes, but also we are always working on all those details, no? But the most important thing is that the vision should be driven by passion for something.

[00:22:51] Dylan Cole: And is that what you tell your wife when she asks why do you have 700 pieces? “It’s my passion?” My passion, yeah. No, you’re totally right — because if it’s coming out and it’s not authentic, people will know.

[00:23:05] Diego Calvo: Totally. And the people nowadays that are travelling — they’re looking a lot at the details. It’s not like in the past, you know, that they were just looking for a comfortable bed, a minibar, good air conditioning, breakfast — ciao. Now they’re always looking for something else, no?

[00:23:21] Dylan Cole: Absolutely. Well, you are doing that — you are delivering something unique and special, and we appreciate you sharing that with us today.

[00:23:30] Diego Calvo: We’ll do our best. We invite you to come and enjoy it.

[00:23:34] Dylan Cole: I will definitely take you up on that. 100%. So, thank you so much, and I look forward to seeing you hopefully soon.

[00:23:42] Diego Calvo: Yeah, it’s been a pleasure. Hopefully soon we can meet up in person too.

[00:23:46] Dylan Cole: I look forward to it.

[00:23:47] Diego Calvo: Thank you. Thank you, Dylan.

[00:23:53] Outro: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hotel Moment by Revinate. Our community of hoteliers is growing every week, and each guest we speak to is tackling industry challenges with the innovation and flexibility that our industry demands. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And if you’re listening on YouTube, please like the video and subscribe for more content. For more information, head to revinate.com/hotelmomentpodcast. Until next time, keep innovating.