Have you seen The White Lotus, the hit HBO streaming show about a group of wealthy Americans at a luxury resort?

It may be the most influential TV series in the history of hotels and hotel marketing and the current season (streaming on JIO in India) will be its most successful ever. The season premiere (of season three) delivered 2.4 million viewers in the US, a huge jump from the 1.5 million who watched the premiere of season two. And season one did not even reach 1 million views.

That’s why the travel and tourism industry is watching the response to the show with so much interest.

But first, assuming you have not watched the show, here’s how it works. Season one was shot in the Four Seasons in Maui in Hawaii and dealt with spoiled rich guests and the harassed staff of the hotel (called The White Lotus in the script) and was written with a little sympathy and a lot of satire.

It was made by Mike White, a writer-director, who took advantage of the pandemic to film the show in a hotel that was very nearly empty. I enjoyed it and so, I imagine, did most of the people who watched it. But at that stage, I don’t think anyone realised what a phenomenon it was set to become.

That only happened in the post-pandemic phase when more people were eager to travel, and so they booked themselves into the Four Seasons resort featured in The White Lotus.

The White Lotus also made all luxury hotels everywhere seem more glamorous and desirable again. I knew, when I saw the response, that something significant was happening though many people argued that it was just revenge tourism that had benefited all hotels. And it was true that in the post-pandemic era people who had been stuck at home for months rushed to enjoy a taste of luxury.

Whatever reason you believed had led to the boom, there were consequences for how hotels marketed themselves. By the time The White Lotus was........

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