While there are child-free hotels and tech-free hotels, it was once incredibly rare for a resort to specifically single out selfies and other photography.
Taking photographs of one’s new surroundings is, for many, a core part of travel while the resorts themselves are usually all too happy to have visitors draw attention to their property on social media.
But in the ultra-luxury space, many high-profile guests will often choose a property specifically to get away from prying eyes. As such, some properties are experimenting with photo bans that then allow them to market the privacy they can offer guests.
5-star hotels in France, England are among those to crack down on guest photography
The historic five-star Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc hotel on the French Riviera is one property that recently rewrote its policy. It stated that while photography in common areas is allowed, guests are not to take pictures by the pool and spa areas or in ways that inadvertently capture other guests. These rules are now posted on the hotel’s website and placed inside each guest’s room at check-in.
“If you are in the Grand Allee of Hotel du Cap taking a picture, but there’s somebody coming down behind, we would tell people not to take any pictures,” Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc Manager Sophie Volant said in an interview with Travel Weekly.
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The policy was inspired by Volant’s work travels to the U.S. and visits to private member’s clubs in Los Angeles and Palm Beach — several had strict no-photos policies that she thought would transfer over given her own resort’s history and large number of celebrity guests.
(The Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc was built in 1870 as a secluded writer’s retreat and was eventually expanded into the main grand hotel on the French Riviera attracting the likes of Picasso and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald over the years.)
The Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes recently updated its policy on guest photography.Oetker Hotels
Other hotels with no-photos policies
The Estelle Manor, an 85-acre estate that was built in the Jacobethean style near the English Cotswolds in 1908, has had a strict “no photos in public areas” policy since it opened following a renovation in 2023.
While guests can do what they want in their own rooms, photography use is strictly prohibited and enforced in the state’s main manor house, four restaurants as well as the pool and baths area to create the atmosphere of full escape and stepping into a different era.
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Some hotels with famous client bases have always had policies limiting photography. Château Marmont in West Hollywood presented itself as a no-paparazzi, no photos haven since it was converted from a luxury apartment building to a Sunset Boulevard hotel in 1939.
The ultra-luxury hotel brand Aman states that “no personal, professional or commercial photography or videography is allowed on properties” that span Europe, the Middle East and North America.
This ability to offer privacy even in a bustling metropolis is precisely what makes particular brands and individual properties sought-after by those who are trying to avoid being photographed and prying eyes in general.
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