Caroline McKay Crafts Hospitality Narratives Via Boutique Studio Caro

Notable clients include Equinox Hotels, Starlite Motel, and more

(Caro founder Caroline McKay)

Perfect For: Hospitality brands looking for personalized storytelling from a publicity veteran

For Caroline McKay, founder of boutique creative studio Caro, her publicity work with hotels has always been borne of a passion for travel.

“So, I have always been interested in hospitality,” McKay tells A HOTEL PODCAST. “I personally love to travel. I really thrive on finding boutique hotels or discovering destinations before they get big. So it's always been kind of a passion of mine, kind of like finding those places, making my friends come with me.”

Before launching Caro, McKay started her career at a small New York PR firm. Though the agency catered to an array of industries, hospitality was always the draw for McKay. “Whether it was a restaurant opening or a new hotel, it just really fascinated me.”

After nearly five years in the agency world and a move to Los Angeles, McKay returned to New York for an in-house PR position at Soho House. But by spring of 2020 she left to pursue launching Caro.

“Always a great time to start a firm, right in the middle of the pandemic,” McKay jokes. “Most of our clients are in hospitality and design, and from a hospitality perspective, concepts are really struggling with how to get messaging out. How to communicate all these changes that were happening because of the pandemic. So we helped a lot with that type of communication, but also a realization from our end that when people did start traveling again, they were going to be going domestic first. So it was a time when hotels, who had been closed for months, were actually going to be able to ramp back up. And we kind of started really with that.”

“For us, we really take the time at the start of working with someone to understand, ‘Okay. What's your story? What are your goals? And how can we use PR to get you there? Or how can we support you in those goals through PR?’” - Caroline McKay

In founding her own agency, McKay sought to communicate the human side of hospitality that’s often overlooked, affirming that she “love(s) stories. I think it means so much more to people when you hear a story about a property or you kind of get to know the CEO a little bit better or you understand why they're doing certain things. And that I think is really what makes people not only want to come and stay, but also maybe make it a place that they go a lot or make it resonate with them more. So for us…it's more than just getting things out there, but really also making sure that what the client wants communicated into the world is being communicated.

“And I think, when you're hearing from a CEO, I think sometimes people forget that…hospitality is like a 20 act play, right? Like it's a 24 hour thing where like all these people are working seamlessly together so that you don't have to worry about anything. And so just seeing how that is orchestrated and like understanding that a little bit more, but also then understanding why every concept goes the extra mile in their own way, to make it a place that you love. And no one ever really gets to see that. They don't get to see the behind the scenes, which is what it's supposed to be. But it's also kind of cool to hear from people that work internally, why they love hospitality, what it means to them and what they're trying to put out there, what their story is. So it's been really fun for us and it's such a good molding of all my favorite things to be honest.”

Caro’s client roster is limited and selective to better focus on providing resources to noteworthy projects and campaigns. McKay recalls “a period of time when I thought success meant growth in the amount of people working for you, the amount of clients,” before experiencing a change of heart in 2023. “We've always been intentional about what clients we take on because also PR doesn't work for everyone. And we also want to make sure that the clients we are taking on, that it works well for.” As such, Caro’s client portfolio features quality over quantity, evident in the firm’s portfolio of standout hospitality properties.

(The pool at Casa Hormiga)

Such is the case with Casa Hormiga, a stunning old world retreat in Bacalar, Quintana Roo, México that emphasizes wellness and healing experiences. The hotel’s storied history runs surprisingly deep. All the way back to the Cretaceous Period, as McKay explains.

(Casa Hormiga)

“What's amazing about (Bacalar) is it's a six mile lake that is made up of, it's either six or seven different cenotes. And they have, in this lake, the longest living organisms in the world. They're called (​​stromatolites) and they kind of look like these kind of beautiful rocks, but, and this kind of ties into the healing aspect of Casa Hormiga, but, when the meteorite hit that killed all the dinosaurs, that happened right at the Yucatán Peninsula. Which a lot of people don't know. And that's why there's so many cenotes in Mexico. And that led to all the gasses in the universe. And people say that these came down almost as like these savior aliens. But these organisms basically inhaled the gasses and put oxygen back in the air. So making Earth habitable again. So a big part of this destination is preserving these. Making sure that tourism doesn't ruin (these) millions of years old organisms, and Casa Hormiga focuses on that.”

(Equinox Hotels)

A far more modern Caro client can be found in Hudson Yards luxury property Equinox Hotels. The hotel prides itself on its elevated sleep experience for guests, even going so far as to present a Global Sleep Symposium from June 19th through the 21st. The event promises “dynamic programming, and industry experts in sleep health and performance converge to redefine the landscape of sleep tourism.” It’s a central part of the narrative McKay and Caro share about the hotel.

(The Presidential Suite at Equinox Hotels)

“(Equinox has) 212 rooms at their New York location and they worked with a sleep scientist to develop the rooms. And so they're completely blackout. No sound pollution, no light pollution. And then they have all these touches in the room that just maximize your sleep. And for them, a goal was really to be known for this because it's such a rare proposition. I mean, when you think about it, the amount of times you're staying in a hotel and there's a little blinking light from the TV, from the fire alarm. There's none of that. They also have a button next to the bed, which is the most amazing thing. It's called Dark, Quiet, Cool, and you press it before you go to bed. And it brings the room into a perfect temperature. Perfect darkness level. All of the things. So they really thought of everything, and because of that, they wanted that story told.

“So for us, we latched onto that. We worked with them a lot to get all the information around the program that they were launching, called The Art and Science of Sleep, and then disseminated that information. So that trade press was writing about it. Consumer press was writing about it. Any topic of sleep tourism, they're included as one of the players in this. And so for us, it took a while to set that up in terms of making sure that we had all the information, but it's also such a huge part of what the brand is. So it's so important for us that it was told correctly as well.”

(Starlite Motel)

Heading further upstate is Caro client The Starlite Motel in Hudson Valley, a kitsch reimagined motor lodge from the ‘60s. Though the nostalgia-leaning property launched during the pandemic, it may have actually worked to the property’s advantage, as McKay explains.

(A guest room at Starlite Motel)

“They launched right in COVID. So that would be an example of kind of what I talked about earlier, not knowing if it was good to launch then, but then also realizing that there were so many aspects around that hotel that worked perfectly for that era, where people were dying to get away, but they were more comfortable with driving. And then it's also, because of the motel setup, there was…no-contact needed to get into your room. You didn't have to walk through a lobby. You didn't have to walk through an enclosed space with other people. You were able to just access your room, park right in front of it. And so there were so many aspects to it, around their launch, that we could tie-in that made sense for people during that time and kind of lean into that rather than just being like, ‘Oh, a hotel's opening in the middle of COVID.’”

For more on Caro, click play on McKay’s A HOTEL PODCAST interview below, where the founder speaks on about notable clients, details her philosophy on choosing the right service offerings, and more.

Find more via Caro. And subscribe for more from A Hotel Podcast on LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Words and by Jaime Black. All images via their respective hotels.