Create. Hospitality.

When venture capital firm Azora wanted to compete in the highly saturated hostel sector, they approached Saffron to create a new hospitality concept. The resulting business and brand, Latroupe, has the quality of a hotel with the social atmosphere and unique travelling experience of a hostel.

The target audience is a new type of guest – a more mature backpacker, willing to spend more but wanting to have the social aspects of hostel life when travelling independently. The new concept also needed to entice young active families and working nomads.

To meet and exceed the expectations of these audiences, a high quality experience and the sense of community spirit that has always been at the heart of the hostel experience was necessary. Reflective of the espirit de corps of such a place, the name for the new business was defined: Latroupe.

Working as a close-knit team with our client, we defined multiple internal and external audience journeys. This helped refine initial assumptions and make key business decisions as the organisation was growing. The focus on experience was imperative given that the brand would find success only if travellers, employees, neighbours and others each had a tailored, positive and cohesive experience of the new brand.

Building on this spirit, we crafted a brand strategy to act as a compass to set Latroupe out into the world, fuel the natural curiosity of travellers and celebrate individualism whilst building a sense of community without borders. The concept was eclectic enough to ensure everyone at Latroupe feels a trouper, from travellers to local visitors, from frontdesk staff to business partners.

A key challenge in the hospitality industry is being a good neighbour to the locals in whichever city the brand settles. We solved this through building a familiar connection amongst the diverse Latroupe locations, while also involving and adapting to each location.

The visual identity does just that, it provides a seamless solution to add “unity in diversity”. This encourages each location to live its personality, emerging as the local ambassadors for a global community of travellers. The design system is also aligned with the “maverick” spirit of the brand and its energising voice in communications. The identity is also underlined by a number of “pledges” that any person involved with the brand needs to live by, in order to create the kind of environment the brand promises.

Since launch in late 2021, Latroupe is already delivering on its promise with great success. It is growing at breakneck speed fueled by a moment of travel frenzy that promises to bring thousands of troupers to their doors. When travelling in Europe, watch out for this new flock of mavericks redefining travel and hospitality.