In an era when luxury risks becoming a catchall , Belmond built value the old-fashioned way – by turning journeys into narratives and properties into characters. What began with a single Venetian hotel became a diversified, experience-led brand that treats rail cars, riverboats, jungle lodges, and grand hotels as one continuous stage for elegance.
Origins & Expansion
In 1976, American entrepreneur James Sherwood bought Venice’s Hotel Cipriani for roughly £900,000, a contrarian wager when high-end travel lacked today’s global footprint. He sourced and restored vintage Orient Express carriages and in 1982, launched the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, sending guests from Paris and London to Venice in lacquered wood, marquetry, and white-jacket service. The point was not transit; it was time travel. His thesis was simple: movement should feel like cinema.
Building upon the success of the Orient-Express, the Royal Scotsman arrived in 1985 to traverse Scotland’s Highlands in salon-car intimacy; by 1999, the Hiram Bingham in Peru made the journey to Machu Picchu part of the company’s mystique. And eventually moving beyond the rails, Sherwood’s portfolio grew into river cruises on the Amazon, which put rainforest at the cabin window, and safari lodges in Botswana that brought wildlife to the veranda.
Each addition followed a house rule: provenance first, polish second.
Rebrand, Global Footprint & House Icons
As the collection outgrew an Orient Express-only identity, the company rebranded to Belmond in 2014 to signal a world of “beautiful places” under one banner. The name change arrived alongside definitive properties that clarified the brand’s lens: Belmond Hotel das Cataratas, uniquely inside Brazil’s Iguaçu National Park, giving dawn-only access to the falls, and Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, where country-house quiet meets Michelin discipline.
As of the early 2010s, Belmond had operations spanning six continents – hotels, trains, river cruises, and lodges unified by a curatorial promise rather than a cookie-cutter standard.
The LVMH Era & What Comes Next
In December 2018, LVMH agreed to acquire Belmond in a deal valued at about $3.2 billion. Completed in April 2019, the transaction paired luxury goods product maisons with an experienced arm. Under LVMH, Belmond has blended heritage with fresh takes on experiential travel: the Eastern & Oriental Express returned to Southeast Asia in 2024 with reimagined cabins and itineraries; the Royal Scotsman debuted a Dior spa carriage the same year.
Culture sits close to the core, too. During the 2024 Venice Biennale, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express unveiled a sleeper by artist JR, proof that preservation and contemporary art can share a carriage.
A 10-year reinvestment plan is reshaping the Belmond model. Belmond Maroma on Mexico’s Riviera Maya reopened in 2023 after a ground-up redesign that puts local craft and sustainability at the forefront; Belmond Milaroca on Mexico’s Pacific coast follows – an original build that suggests the brand will create new icons where none existed, not just revamp the old.
Belmond’s moat is steeped in the insistence that place leads and design follows, and Sherwood’s founding instinct survives the change of shareholders and decades: elegance, adventure, authenticity, in that order. Under LVMH’s ownership, the company’s efforts read like a luxury ecosystem – trains, hotels, residences, partnerships – where IP is not only in the branding but in the way the company provides its offerings.
From a jetty on the Giudecca to a platform in Caledonia, Belmond keeps betting that the rarest luxury is not square footage, but how a journey feels.
This piece was prepared in collaboration with Jamie Zwirn and Emilie Mentrup.
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