Digital product studio, Nightjar, has partnered with Australian luxury hospitality group Salter Brothers Hospitality (SBH), to launch a digital platform that brings the group’s portfolio under one destination.
The digital platform, Worlds Apart, spans four distinct brands – the new Ardour Hotels & Estates brand, Bannisters Hotels, Spicers Retreats, and a collection of Independent Retreat Hotels – creating a cross-portfolio discovery and booking experience for guests looking for more than a traditional hotel stay.
With a significant amount of revenue generated by restaurant bookings, the platform said it needed to work as hard for dining as it did for accommodation, which they described as “a nuance that would have been lost in a conventional hotel website format”.
Nightjar’s answer was an experience-first architecture that organises the platform around the ways people actually want to travel – a long weekend with friends, a solo wellness retreat, a milestone dinner, a corporate offsite – rather than room types and availability calendars.
Dining, wellness, experiences and stays are said to present as equal pillars across the platform.
An integrated booking toolbar responds dynamically to whichever property a guest is exploring, with full flexibility for the SBH team to create booking flows across accommodation, dining, or spa treatments. The platform is designed to grow with the SBH business as new properties and experiences are added to the portfolio.
Victoria Peterson, senior group director, marketing performance at Salter Brothers Hospitality, said: “Worlds Apart represents a genuine step change in how we take our portfolio to market. We’ve always believed that what we offer goes far beyond a room booking – it’s about crafting exceptional experiences across food, wellness, landscape and place. Nightjar understood that brief completely, and built us a platform that brings to life that ambition. The ability to have guests seamlessly discover and book across our entire portfolio, is exactly what we needed.”
Ahmed Meer, chief product officer at Nightjar said: “The most interesting problems when creating digital experiences in hospitality aren’t really about technology – they’re about desire. How do you make someone feel something before they’ve arrived? That was our original brief. We structured Worlds Apart around that question.”
“The experience-first architecture, the editorial approach to content, the way the booking layer sits beneath the storytelling rather than in front of it- all of it is designed to turn intent into a booking without the platform ever feeling transactional,” he added.
“We’re proud of what we’ve created, and excited to see it grow.”
