North Island Seychelles Leaves Marriott: This Never Made Sense

North Island, Seychelles, is one of the world’s most exclusive private island resorts. Historically the property was fully independent, until 2019, when it (mysteriously?) joined Marriott, as part of Luxury Collection. I could never really make sense of the logic of that, so there’s now an interesting update — starting in several months, the hotel will no longer be affiliated with Marriott.

Let’s cover the basics, starting with some background.

What is North Island, Seychelles?

North Island is a resort on a private island in the Seychelles, and it has just 11 rooms spread across the island’s nearly 500 acres. It’s just 30 kilometers from Mahe (the main island in the Seychelles), and this island is home to all kinds of endangered species.

This is by far the most luxurious private island resort in Africa, and arguably one of the most luxurious private island resorts in the world. It’s priced accordingly, and then some — it’s easily one of the most expensive hotels in the world, with rates typically starting at around $9,000 per night, give or take.

North Island’s Marriott participation comes to an end

In 2019, we saw North Island join Marriott Bonvoy, as a Luxury Collection property. I’ve gotta say, I found this to be a very strange collaboration. At the time, the property’s managing director described this as follows:

“We are delighted to join the exclusive collection of properties under The Luxury Collection. North Island is the perfect fit for a brand that stands for such exclusive luxury, while recognising the importance of sustainable development, and we look forward to building on the position of the island as one of the world’s most aspirational private-island destinations.”

While there can of course be value in luxury properties joining a major hotel group to increase exposure, I found this to be an unusual collaboration:

• Generally speaking, when I think of a Luxury Collection property, I think of a historic hotel in a city (maybe even a bit past its prime), and not a $10K per night private island resort, with fewer than a dozen accommodations
• There are a lot of hotels where a loyalty program can impact whether or not a guest chooses to stay there; but does that really apply to a hotel that’s this expensive, which counts royalty and endless A-listers among its guests?

There was another interesting thing that happened at the time. The hotel joining Marriott coincided with ASMALLWORLD taking over management of the hotel. For those of you who have no clue what that is, I think Wikipedia describes it pretty well:

ASMALLWORLD is an exclusive, paid-subscription social network, which relaunched in spring 2013 as a private international travel and social club, with a peer-recommended and verified user base capped membership at 250,000 people. Described as “Myspace for millionaires” and “The secret social network for the elite”, the site was founded in 2004 by Erik Wachtmeister and was one of the first social networks at that time.

This organization is rather controversial, and at one point, Harvey Weinstein was the majority shareholder. To me this made the branding even more confusing. An organization that’s all about exclusivity and membership and excluding others wanted the hotel to become more mainstream? At the time, ASMALLWORLD’s CEO stated the following about the company’s involvement with the island:

“We are very excited to launch the ASmallWorld Hotel Collection with such a world-renowned hotel as North Island. This first step towards building our very own luxury hotel collection will allow us to offer our travel-savvy members a unique destination, while at the same time increasing the occupancy rate and the profitability of the property.”

That brings me to the latest update. As of July 1, 2025, North Island will no longer be affiliated with Marriott or the Luxury Collection, and will go back to being fully independent. So if do want to stay here while it’s still a Marriott, now is your last chance to do so. You can redeem Marriott Bonvoy points at the low rate of just *checks notes* 605K points per night.

Bottom line

In 2019, we saw one of the world’s most exclusive private island resorts join Marriott’s Luxury Collection. While the thought of earning and redeeming points here was in theory nice, as you’d expect, this property is out of reach for a vast majority of us.

A little over five years after the partnership was launched, there’s now an update. As of July 1, 2025, North Island will no longer be affiliated with Marriott. I can’t say this is a huge loss for most of us, and if anything, I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.

What do you make of North Island leaving Marriott?