When Art Basel Miami Beach returned in December 2025, The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach, was more than “just” a backdrop.
Under the direction of Area General Manager Stephen Power, the property mounted what may have been its most ambitious cultural programming to date, trading its traditionally modest footprint for something far bolder: a bid to become, as Power puts it, “the epicenter of Art Basel in South Beach.”
It’s a posture that tells you something about where the luxury hospitality world is heading and about Miami’s accelerating identity as a city where world-class culture and world-class sport are increasingly one and the same. In short: Culture and experiences reign supreme, my dear.
(The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach)
For years, The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach participated in Art Basel the way most hotels do: a statement piece in the lobby, perhaps a second installation scattered somewhere on property.
Respectable, but not exactly a destination unto itself.
That changed when Power took stock of the competitive landscape and decided incremental wasn’t good enough.
“I looked around at what we were doing, and I think we typically do one or two centerpieces, maybe one in the lobby and maybe one other,” he said. “But I was looking around at what some of the other hotels were doing, and I thought, why don’t we become the center of what happens in South Beach? Instead of being part of Art Basel, maybe being the epicenter of Art Basel in South Beach.”
What followed was a four-activation program spanning the hotel’s lobby, ballroom, and beachfront — designed to engage both hotel guests and the broader community walking through South Beach’s cultural corridor during fair week.
(The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach)
The Art of the Experience
The centerpiece of the hotel’s 2025 programming was an immersive installation from artist Loris Cecchini, whose work explored the tension and coexistence of structure and fluidity. For Power, the philosophy resonated beyond aesthetics.
“The idea is that structure and adaptability aren’t opposing forces, but can coexist,” Power said. “The bones, the water bones — they provide structure, yet they’re emerged in the fluidity of life. It’s really deep philosophy that we really resonated with at this hotel.”
The selection wasn’t made in a vacuum. The hotel’s ownership group includes Diana Lowenstein, one of its founders, whose family has deep roots in the Miami arts community. Her granddaughter Ilana Ohana, Power noted, was instrumental in shepherding the programming in this direction.
Alongside the Loris installation, the hotel debuted “The Brave New Earth” — a sprawling, interactive environmental installation anchored on the beach. The contrast with traditional Basel fair experiences was intentional.
“People traditionally look at art, but they don’t get to experience it,” Power said. “The really cool thing about ‘The Brave New Earth’ is it’s interactive. It’s this massive living laboratory at the beach, which is just something we haven’t done in Basel. It’s sort of out of the box, and we’re really excited about that.”
Hotel guests received VIP access to the “Brave New Earth” installation, exclusive entry to a private lobby unveiling of the Loris work, and invitations to a Wednesday morning panel featuring all four featured artists — touchpoints designed to make the stay feel genuinely embedded in the week’s cultural fabric rather than adjacent to it.
Sustainability as a Through Line
One of the more substantive threads running through the hotel’s 2025 Basel program was the new official hotel partnership with REEFLINE, a public art and environmental reef restoration initiative.
For Power, who lives on the beach himself, it carried personal weight.
“Our luxury guest’s expectation is that we’re environmentally conscious in every decision we make,” he said. “To actually be able to participate in a major green environmental implementation was really important to me personally. Our guests expect us to lead with the environment.”
Further, Power framed the REEFLINE partnership not as a Basel-specific stunt but as a long-term commitment — a signal that the sustainability narrative being woven through luxury travel is, at least here, more than marketing.
“While it encompasses Basel this week, it’s also something that we’re going to continue to support throughout this relationship,” he said.
Basel Was Just the Beginning
Look beyond December, and you’ll notice what The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach built during Art Basel 2025 is less a seasonal program than a proof of concept for the kind of experiential, culturally embedded hospitality that today’s travelers crave.
According to Expedia’s 2026 “Fan Voyage” trend report, 57% of travelers say they’re likely to attend a uniquely regional sporting or cultural experience while traveling, a figure that climbs to 68% among Gen Z and Millennials.
Meanwhile, Miami has been ranked among the world’s Top 10 Global Sports Cities by Burson, a designation that reflects a city that has figured out how to make the experience around the event as compelling as the event itself.
For Power, the throughline is pretty simple. Art Basel 2025 showed what The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach could be when it decided to stop participating and start leading. And with Miami’s 2026 calendar shaping up to be one of the most event-dense years the city has ever seen — Formula 1, the FIFA World Cup and the Miami Open, all stacked between March and July — that instinct to go bigger increasingly makes more sense.
Art Basel was the proof of concept while the rest of 2026 is the real test. If the energy brought to December is any indication, The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach isn’t planning to watch any of it from the sidelines.
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