Designing Luxury Hospitality Experiences Through Physical Evidence and Sensory Brand Cues: The Case of Imaret Hotel

This independent academic working paper presents a qualitative case study of Imaret Hotel in Kavala, Greece, examining how physical evidence, sensory brand cues, and the heritage servicescape contribute to the construction and communication of a luxury hospitality experience. The paper explores the relationship between heritage architecture, materiality, spatial design, sensory experience, personalization, and brand meaning through a structured documentary and visual-textual analysis of contemporary public Imaret materials. Drawing on servicescape, sensory marketing, luxury hospitality, brand experience, and heritage-authenticity literature, the study examines visual, auditory, olfactory, haptic, gustatory, spatial, and heritage cues and their role in communicating meanings including authenticity, exclusivity, care, aesthetic refinement, and escape. The 2026 paper substantially reconceptualizes an undergraduate Service Marketing case study originally completed in 2023, developing it into a more research-informed analysis with an updated theoretical foundation, contemporary case evidence, explicit qualitative methodology, and an integrated analytical framework linking heritage servicescape, physical evidence, multisensory cues, luxury meanings, and designed brand experience. This work is an independent academic case study. It was not commissioned by, produced for, affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Imaret or its owners. References to Imaret are used exclusively for academic analysis based on publicly available materials.