Seatmates: Tamara Lohan
On building Mr & Mrs Smith, the hotels that make people feel something, and where luxury travel is headed next
This interview is part of Seatmates, a Window Seat series where tastemakers and creatives share how they move through the world—what they pack, where they stay, and the travel rituals that shape their lives.
How do you find the best hotels in the world? Not the ones you hear about most on TikTok or that happen to be the most expensive, but the ones with real character. The hotels you’ll still be thinking about years later. In an era where everyone seems to have a recommendation, knowing who to trust can be surprisingly difficult.
For me, one resource I’ve long turned to is Mr & Mrs Smith. For years, it’s been one of my absolute favorite places to discover and book hotels with a strong sense of place, thoughtful design, and that hard-to-articulate, elusive quality that makes a place impossible to forget.
Behind the brand is Tamara Lohan, who co-founded Mr & Mrs Smith more than twenty years ago after growing frustrated with a hospitality landscape filled with generic stays. In 2023, Hyatt acquired the company, and today Tamara oversees Hyatt’s global luxury portfolio, including brands like Park Hyatt (famously a favorite of mine), Alila, Miraval, and The Unbound Collection.
Read on to learn why she built Mr & Mrs Smith in response to a sea of cookie-cutter hotels, how she’s protecting the soul of the company inside Hyatt, and what she believes separates a beautiful hotel from a truly unforgettable one.
Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m Tamara Lohan. I founded Mr & Mrs Smith with my husband over 20 years ago because we were obsessed with finding hotels with soul, places that actually made you feel something. Hotels where couples went to reconnect, flirt again, stay up too late, order room service and forget what day it was. At the time there were too many forgettable places that treated travel like a transaction instead of one of the great pleasures in life.
Hyatt acquired the business in 2023 and now I lead their luxury portfolio globally looking after brands including Park Hyatt, Miraval, Alila and The Unbound Collection.
I’m still obsessed with hotels. Probably more than ever. The great ones reveal themselves slowly. They have layers, personality, places that couldn’t exist anywhere else. You remember how they made you feel years later.
When you first started Mr & Mrs Smith, what were you bored of seeing in hotels?
Cookie-cutter hotels that could have been anywhere. Endless beige, bland design and a lack of thought for the traveler and how to make their stay comfortable. Service that made you feel like you should be grateful to be there.
Hotels had lost personality. Everything felt standardised and stiff.
How do you keep Mr & Mrs Smith from feeling like just another booking channel within Hyatt Hotels Corporation?
Curation. That’s everything.
Mr & Mrs Smith only works if people trust the point of view behind it. You can’t just add thousands of hotels and hope the brand survives. Natasha, who is now in charge, has been brilliant at protecting what made the brand special in the first place.
What do you think is the most overrated “marker of luxury” in hotels right now?
Huge dramatic lobbies designed for photographs instead of people. They look impressive for thirty seconds then you realise there’s nowhere you actually want to sit.
Real luxury is comfort. Atmosphere. Good lighting. Spaces people want to linger in.
Anonymous hotel reviews are your whole model: the idea that a hotel performs differently when it thinks no one is watching. What's the most common thing hotels get wrong when they think they're not being tested?
It always comes down to service.
When a hotel knows you’re reviewing it, they can orchestrate perfection for a few days. The truly great hotels deliver that feeling all the time because the culture is right. Usually that comes from a brilliant GM who knows how to empower people instead of scripting them.
You can feel the difference instantly.
What’s been your most memorable stay?
I have a lifetime of memories after over twenty years doing this. The hotels I love most are the ones with layers to them.
Uxua Casa in Brazil is one. Every fixture, furnishing and detail has Wilbert Das’s creative eye behind it, but it’s all made by local craftspeople. Then you discover they’ve built a school to help local people into hospitality careers and created an NGO lobbying for more sustainable tourism in the region. It keeps unfolding as you stay there.
I also love hotels with real cultural history behind them. Hôtel Martinez on the Riviera shaped beach club culture in the South of France. It feels cinematic the second you walk in. Proper art deco glamour. Then you find out it’s still woven into modern culture and television decades later. La Palme d’Or’s renovation is fantastic too.
Is there a destination or property at the top of your wishlist?
This weekend I’m going to visit the new hotel on the Île de Bendor, which I’m excited about.
But the one I can’t wait to see open is the new Park Hyatt Mexico City in Polanco. It’s going to be stunning because it feels deeply connected to Mexico itself. The art, the design, the cuisine, every part of it looks like a genuine reflection of contemporary Mexican culture rather than a luxury template dropped into the city.
What are your must-haves when it comes to luggage and items you travel with?
Packing cubes and pouches for everything. I like order when I travel.
I’ve also become obsessed with Noble Panacea night serums because they are brilliant but also come in single-use capsules. Perfect for traveling light.
What is your go-to airport outfit?
For long-haul flights, I still wear an ancient pair of Vivienne Westwood trousers because they’re soft enough to sleep in. A cashmere cardigan that doubles as a blanket or pillow. And my own silk eye mask because airline ones are always terrible.
Do you have any rules or rituals when it comes to air travel?
I never drink alcohol on flights. I finish my work first, then I sleep or read.
And I never check a bag, no matter how long the trip is.
Last question: aisle or window seat?
Window.
You’re left alone, you can lean against something to sleep, and you control the light.
Ha ha I think this interview has just ousted me as a control freak!
Interested in being featured in Seatmates or know someone who should be? Drop me a line here.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you make a purchase (at no cost to you).
Tori Simokov is a Travel Writer and Graphic Designer/Strategist based in New York. To get in touch, email tori@v1projects.com. Want more? Check out Instagram, TikTok, or shop her curated favorites.