The secret cartography of luxury

By Flavia Tomaello, https://flaviatomaello.blog/, Instagram @flavia.tomaello

For just over a decade, Lisbon has been experiencing a hotel boom that has completely changed the profile of the city. Where once family pensions and hotels for backpackers predominated, today five-star proposals, rooftops with swimming pools and menus signed by renowned chefs are multiplying. This movement was not born out of nowhere, but was pushed, to a large extent, by Portuguese hotel groups that decided to bet heavily on the luxury segment just when the city was beginning to establish itself as an international tourist destination. One of those protagonists is the SANA group, a company founded in 1999 that started in the three-star hotel industry and that, over the years, built an increasingly ambitious portfolio, until it became a central player in the Portuguese hotel industry, with a presence today in Portugal, Angola, France, Germany and, soon, in Morocco and Georgia.

Within this universe of brands, which includes concepts such as Mythic, Myriad or the four-star SANA Excellence hotels, there is a category that the group itself describes as its highest ceiling, Epic Sana. The name works almost like a declaration of intent, these are hotels designed to offer a stay that, according to the group’s internal definition, is extraordinary in every detail, from the comfort of the rooms to the gastronomic proposal and the rest spaces. It is the highest five-star category in the house, and functions, in practice, as the international showcase of the SANA group.

The first of these hotels to open was the one now known as Epic Sana Marquês, located on Avenida da Liberdade, the most elegant and expensive artery in Lisbon, a few meters from Praça do Marquês de Pombal. With 379 rooms, the hotel became over the years a kind of flagship of the brand, both for its location and for its gastronomic offer, which includes Allora, an Italian restaurant, and Koji, a private space designed for exclusive events. Its terrace with an infinity pool, overlooking the roofs of downtown Lisbon, ended up being one of the most photographed postcards of the city in recent years. Not far from there, near the Amoreiras shopping center, there is Epic Sana Lisboa, a second hotel of the same category, with 311 rooms and a conference center with capacity for up to a thousand people, which made it a reference point for business and event tourism in the Portuguese capital.

A map that starts at Avenida da Liberdade and ends in Morocco

Epic Sana’s bet was not limited to Lisbon. On Praia da Falésia, in Albufeira, in the heart of the Algarve, the group built a 229-unit resort that combines a beach, spa and several restaurants under one roof, including Al Quimia, distinguished in this year’s Michelin Guide. The proposal there is completed with five outdoor pools, a heated indoor pool, paddle tennis courts and a conference center with more than 1,800 square meters of surface, designed for both sun and beach tourists and the corporate segment. The expansion strategy also crossed the Atlantic, to Angola, where Epic Sana Luanda operates, a 238-room hotel located in the center of the Angolan capital, with a panoramic view over the bay and a particularly extensive gastronomic offer, with six different restaurants and bars within the same building.

This international deployment does not stop there. The group plans to open, in the coming years, a new Epic Sana in Casablanca, Morocco, with 188 rooms, within the framework of a broader expansion that also includes new projects under other brands of the group in that same city and in Tbilisi, Georgia. The choice of Morocco is not coincidental, it is a market that in recent years has concentrated a good part of the international luxury hotel investment, ahead of the 2030 World Cup, which the country will organize together with Spain and Portugal.

Beyond the location of each property, there is a common thread that runs through all the brand’s hotels, the idea that luxury is not only about the size of the rooms or the quality of the bedding, but also about well-being. All Epic Sana have Sayanna spas, a group-specific concept that combines Eastern and Western wellness techniques, also present in other company brands. Sustainability, for its part, appears as a declared axis, not only in the speech but also in the certifications, all SANA hotels in Portugal have the Green Key seal, which audits the environmental performance of tourist establishments, and several of the group’s properties were recognized in recent years for their sustainable management in categories linked to event and meeting tourism.

External recognition was not lacking either. Both Epic Sana Marquês and Epic Sana Algarve are part of the Preferred Collection, within Preferred Hotels & Resorts, one of the most demanding global associations of independent luxury hotels in terms of quality standards, and in recent years both properties have accumulated distinctions from publications specialized in high-end tourism and hospitality, both in the category of conference and event hotels and in the category of luxury spas. In Angola, Epic Sana Luanda was recognized as the best hotel in the country in 2025 by a specialized publication in the sector, a fact that confirms the weight that the brand was gaining outside of Europe as well.

What began, a little over two decades ago, as a commitment by a Portuguese hotel group to the three-star segment, ended up leading to a luxury category with a presence on three continents. Epic Sana is not, in that sense, just the name of a hotel chain, but the result of an expansion strategy that turned a local group into an actor with increasingly international ambitions, with Lisbon as the symbolic epicenter and with new openings that are already on the horizon, in Morocco and beyond.

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