W Hotels Expands Italian Footprint With New Sardinia Resort — and a Three-Stop ‘Italian Tour’

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W Hotels is continuing its reinvention with a growing portfolio of properties across Italy, anchored by its latest opening: W Sardinia – Poltu Quatu, a 157-room resort tucked into a secluded marina village on the island’s northeastern coast.

The property joins W Rome and the recently opened W Florence, giving the Marriott-owned luxury lifestyle brand three markedly different interpretations of Italy. Guests can now visit all three through W’s “Italian Tour,” a new travel offer combining suite accommodations and locally inspired food and drink experiences in Florence, Rome and Sardinia.

“We don’t need to reinvent it,” Brad Wulff, the vice president and global brand leader at W Hotels, tells Variety. “W Hotels has always been at its best when it’s a little ahead of where culture is headed, whether that’s design, music, fashion, nightlife or the way people come together. Our job now is to take that DNA and make it relevant for how people live and travel today.”

That evolution is immediately visible at W Sardinia, which occupies a collection of whitewashed buildings built into the rocky coastline surrounding the village’s marina. The hotel’s interiors were designed by Meyer Davis and draw from the island’s caves, coastal landscape, artisan traditions and folklore, including stories of the Janas, fairy-like figures said to inhabit Sardinia’s ancient sites.

Rather than replicate the overtly nightclub-inspired aesthetic associated with earlier iterations of W, the property offers a more restrained take on the brand’s social energy. Its 157 rooms and suites are conceived as grotto-like retreats, with textured stone, curved details and reflective surfaces that evoke the surrounding water.

“Sardinia has this incredible duality,” Wulff says. “It’s obviously beautiful, but it also has a wildness to it. It doesn’t feel overly polished or predictable. And Poltu Quatu in particular has this sense of discovery. You arrive and feel like you’ve found something unique.”

The resort is centered around its marina and WET Deck pool, while its food and beverage offerings include TANIT, a waterfront restaurant led by chef Antonio Bitetto. Named after an ancient goddess associated with abundance, the restaurant emphasizes Sardinian seafood and produce and overlooks the yachts moving through the harbor. A dedicated pastry room overseen by Italian pastry chef Fabrizio Fiorani makes breakfast one of the property’s more elaborate dining experiences.

Guests can also travel across the bay to the hotel’s beach club on nearby islands. An ideal day at the property might look like a coffee at TANIT, followed by a boat ride to the beach and an aperitivo back at the hotel as the sun sets.

That balance between seclusion and activity is central to the property’s intended appeal. “They don’t necessarily want to choose between a restorative escape and a social, cultural experience,” Wulff says of today’s luxury traveler. “W Sardinia gives you both and lets you decide when you want each one.”

The Sardinia resort also gives W a coastal counterpart to its two urban Italian hotels. W Rome, which opened in 2021, is housed inside a historic palazzo near the Spanish Steps and contains 148 rooms and suites. Its restaurants and nightlife spaces include Giano, the Sicilian-inspired restaurant from chef Ciccio Sultano; the cocktail-focused W Lounge; and Citrico Rooftop, which serves naturally leavened pizza and Mediterranean dishes overlooking the city. A sixth-floor WET Deck offers a plunge pool and another gathering space above the capital.

W Florence, meanwhile, opened with 119 rooms near Piazza di Santa Maria Novella. The property blends contemporary interiors with references to Florentine architecture, art and Medici history, including a custom reception mural depicting exotic animals once associated with the ruling family’s collection. Its Zefiro Rooftop looks out toward the Duomo and Santa Maria Novella, while hotel programming  includes art exhibitions, workshops and collaborations with local creatives.

The challenge in the next phase of the company’s overhaul is convincing travelers whose image of W may have been formed 15 or 20 years ago to reconsider the brand. “When you walk into this new generation of hotels, the change is pretty immediate,” Wulff says. “The design is more sophisticated, the service is more intuitive and the energy is still there — it’s just evolved.”

“We don’t want to erase what people loved about W Hotels,” he continues. “We want to remind them why it was so exciting in the first place and show them what that looks like now.”