Arnaud Zannier, founder of Zannier Hotels: a passionate and personal reimagining of luxury resort aesthetics

He is indeed a pioneer—the scion of a notable French family that made its fortune in the children’s apparel business. The brash young Arnaud passed on the chance to enter his father’s trade, splintering off and co-founding a successful footwear company instead. However, it was his passion for travel in exotic destinations around the world that inspired his most impactful business ideas. Staying in some of the finest luxury hotels during his travels, he soon grew tired of the inauthentic experiences they offered. Dissatisfied, his thoughts turned to founding his own deluxe resort brand perfectly suited to the tastes and temperament of discerning voyagers such as himself.

The opportunity to bring his ideas to reality came when his father asked him to reconsider being part of the family business and come back into the fold. Reluctant to take a step backwards, he instead raised his thoughts about a new approach to hospitality, showing how the luxury market was in need of an alternative take with fresh parameters. It was just an idea dropped in conversation—but six months later, Zannier’s father called back with a spectacular real estate opportunity in the French Alps. Having his family’s full financial resources standing behind their prodigal son, Zannier had a prime opportunity to put his concept to the test.

“I didn’t know anything about hospitality,” he admits. “Never attended any schools about hospitality, nothing. It was just an aspiration for something different. As a consumer, when I was traveling, I was never fully happy—because to me, not all the elements were within the composition of the experience. This is how I proposed the idea to my family.

“We started Le Chalet small, with only 12 suites, but we tailor-made the product, every detail—including hiring 40 staff, so it was practically butler service at every level. It worked.”

What Zannier created on the snow-covered slopes of the Mont-Blanc mountain range was a remarkable concept, considering the norms of luxury hospitality. Rather than meet any particular niche or respond to trends in a certain market segment, Zannier built a high-end accommodation brand aesthetic based entirely on his own approach and vision. In personally creating the design language for Zannier the brand, there’s a stamp on each of his resorts that is Zannier the man. All Zannier Hotels properties in operation today, including Le Chalet and his properties in Cambodia, Namibia, and Vietnam, amongst others, exist as a reflection of their owner.

“When you’re passionate, you need to express yourself and do exactly what you want, otherwise you’re no good at it,” says Zannier. “So for me, it was very important to start with something that I was 200% dedicated to and deeply invested in.

“I don’t like boundaries, I don’t like to be channelled into anything. I create what I feel is right for the place and hope that guests will see what I see and enjoy it the same way. This is how it started. Luckily, quickly, even after the first property, we had the success we were hoping for. So I simply continue to do what I like to do. I never force myself to do anything I don’t like. You won’t see any glass or milk pot, anything in our property that I didn’t choose. If I don’t like it, it’s not there.

“I never compromise. Compromise is wrong. You end up having something that’s halfway, and it’s not as strong.”

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In many ways, Zannier’s instincts were prescient of a broader thirst amongst luxury travellers for more authentic, localised experiences. Whilst he was determined to cleave to his own personal tastes, those tastes extended to a fascination for authenticity of place, for locality and genuine cultural alignment. In the days when Zannier travelled himself—now a rare pleasure for the owner of an ever-expanding portfolio of resorts and private estates—he would always find himself looking outward from his five-star accommodations at the nearby villages and towns, perhaps wishing, as the most sensitive travellers sometimes do, to be able to walk inside any of those foreign dwellings and be home.

“It probably comes from growing up in a family environment and culture where luxury is not always about the material or the branding, but more about the experiences,” remembers Zannier. “We had a family weekend house where friends were always staying. My father loved to receive them and serve good wine, good food, spend quality moments together—but in a simple way, not to impress.

“I was brought up in this environment, in this surrounding. I believe it reflects what I do today. It’s not the most expensive item that’s going to create the most incredible or memorable experiences.”

Zannier’s family memories hearken back to a time before digital addictions and the habit of travelling with devices perpetually in hand, before the Wi-Fi password became the first question resort guests ask when arriving at their rooms.

“I was raised in a generation where grandparents were still very present,” he says. “My grandmother cooking, the smell of hot bread and coffee in the kitchen in the morning—these are all emotions, feelings that are printed in your memory.

“My grandparents were farmers in the middle of France, so I used to spend my holidays there, getting fresh milk from the farm next door in the evening, going with my grandfather to collect mushrooms in the forest when the season was right. These are all simple moments that are disappearing from modern life, which I find a shame because these are very grounding moments that procure memories. And this is what I’m trying to do in the hotels—being able to create and imprint simple memories in the mind of a guest.

“For me, those subtle and unique little moments stick better than saying, ‘oh, my bathroom had a golden tap’. And as a person, I am not looking for that. When I was traveling, I wanted my kids to taste local food at the market rather than have something that you can get anywhere in the world, such as fancy sushi. You should get sushi when you go to Japan, but why would you want to do sushi if you’re in Italy? No—do the best mozzarella and tomatoes. Serve a great paella when you’re in Spain.

“This is my philosophy. This is what I’m trying to translate through the creation of all these hotels.”

Zannier Hotels is currently undergoing a gradual transformation towards a new set of protocols promoting holistic wellness at all resorts, whilst developing fresh, wellness-themed packages for offer to guests during their stay.

At Zannier Bãi San Hô, there is a palpable mood of wholesomeness and balance that is swiftly becoming a key focus of the hospitality experience. Six months ago, the group appointed a new regional spa person in charge of both Cambodia and Vietnam, who managed to successfully boost spa revenues by 50 percent since her arrival by reaching beyond the traditional spa menu and developing broader, more impactful programmes.

“We don’t want to become just a wellness destination or healthcare specialists,” explains Zannier. “It’s still a leisure hotel, but we want to help people understand why something is good for you or not in terms of nutrition or activities; if you need something that is more calming, or something more active, depending on your body type.

“We start with a screening process with the help of a bio-resonance machine. Our Wellness Manager will welcome you and ask you some questions. We’ll look at your eyes, your tongue, and try to identify your body type—because we’re inspired by Ayurvedic and ancient Chinese medicine, where it’s all about energy. Then, after the screening, you get a program that will be a mix of activities. Yoga on the beach at sunrise. Maybe eat a bit more fruit in the morning to better capture your vitamins. Or take a shower in the evening to release the stress of the day, and you might go to sleep faster. They’re all just small tips.

“What we want is for our guests to take with them the knowledge of how to continue and introduce all these elements within their daily life routine at home, so that it has a profound and lasting change on their wellness. We want to make a long-term impact.”

Of course, it’s no accident that Zannier Bãi San Hô is embracing first this new approach. As with all things connected with the brand, this new progression directly follows the spiritual evolution of the man himself. 

For the first time in this conversation, Arnaud Zannier appears shy.

“Why am I doing this?” he blushes. “Again, everything is very personal. Six years ago, I separated from my wife, now my ex-wife. After the divorce, I found a new partner, who is my wife today. She was just really into wellbeing, and I educated myself, indirectly, through her.”

In this new love, Zannier has found a renewed energy in life, which is now manifest in the resorts that bear his name—and he has much to share about the discoveries he has made through his relationship.

“You know, life changes are done in small steps,” he muses, as rough waves rise and resolve on Zannier’s soft sandy beach, the same pale ochre colour of his grandmother’s hot bread. There isn’t a thing about the Vietnamese resort that doesn’t emerge from his world, that doesn’t reflect his passion.

“Small things, but you have to be consistent,” he smiles. “So if we want to bring something positive into the lives of our guests, we have to introduce small steps that they can understand and learn from us while they’re here, to carry on when they’re back home.

“That’s the philosophy of Zannier wellness.”

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