Choice. Hoteliers talk about it a lot these days, typically as an aspirational end game for this next phase of a guest-centric hotel experience.
Forget cute amenities or white-glove service. Travelers want the ability to customize and control every aspect of their stay. Technology enables them to do so at home. Why shouldn’t they expect the same in a hotel?
The concept of choice is so obvious and expected that it becomes painfully conspicuous when absent.
That brings me to the BDwest design conference in San Diego this week. Though the trade show floor hosted a variety of products in all shapes, sizes, colors, textures and textiles, the programming that accompanied it featured speakers who seemed oddly reluctant to relinquish the power of choice to their clients.
The sentiment was summed up through this tongue-in-cheek quip from Tryggvi Thorsteinsson from Minarc:
When asked if he gives clients options when presenting a finished design, he said, “If you have kids, if you give the kids too many options they get confused and don’t know what to do.”
Tandem’s Dezirae Janowicz was more convincing.
“I don’t believe in piecemeal design as much as wholesome, collective design,” she said.
The best designs are presented as collective entities, she added. If you start tweaking options over here, they might not jive with options over there. The result is a finished product that appears just the opposite: an unfinished, haphazard mess.
Erla Dögg Ingjaldsdóttir, also of Minarc, shared a similar perspective. “We are big believers in presenting what we think is the best for the client,” she said. Providing an array of options runs counter to that goal.
I would have loved to see a panel in which developers and operators had a chance to respond. The debate, if allowed to gestate freely, could have been interesting.
I saw a spark in the panel I moderated, in which Carlos Marrero, a VP of Room Mate Hotels, shared his design directive from someone who wears the hat of an operator (in addition to several others).
He tells designers to go nuts on the first run. Doing so breeds creativity and innovation. From there, he and the Room Mate team reigns the design back in until it becomes a realistic blueprint for a design that not only appeals to guests but also pencils for owners.
That approach mirrored Janowicz’s comment during a panel the day before:
“We try to come up with our entire design presentation. We may have something in our back pocket if we’re leery that something is a little bit too forward for them or a little bit off the cuff,” she said.
So perhaps choice, in the world of hotel design, is overrated—at least on the drawing board. Designers should be encouraged to shoot for the stars. The ones footing the bill are always able to reel them a bit closer back to earth.
Now on to the usual goodies …
What’s making me happy this week?
All the eye candy on display at BDwest. The eclectic sensibilities of designers might not appeal to everyone, but give these folks credit for coming to conferences with beautiful slide decks at the ready. During panels and presentations, I found myself distracted from note taking by all the renderings and photography of some of the most beautiful hotels in our industry (or on the way).
Here’s one of countless samplings, an exterior shot of the Ion Luxury Adventure Hotel in Iceland.
|
| (Photo: Ion Luxury Adventure Hotel) |
Stat of the week
$102.09: Average-daily-rate premium held by boutique hotels over the total U.S. average for February year to date, according to data from STR, the parent company of Hotel News Now.
It’s one of several interest stats I found while compiling a presentation for BDwest, which you can view here. (Registration/log in required.)
Quote of the week
“I wanted our hosts to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to democratize trust.”
—Chip Conley, head of global hospitality and strategy at Airbnb, on the subject of “trust” during an IHIF panel in Berlin.
Though I attended the International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin last month, this was the first I had heard of the quote, which was recounted this week in a piece from colleague Terence Baker. It’s an idealistic goal, to be sure, but then Conley isn’t one to be bogged down by the limitations of the known or expected.
Reader comment of the week
“This has to be a positive move to help boost occupancy levels. These changes need to be driven by the large brnads to make a real change.” (sic)
—Reader “annrevsol” in response to the rise of late cancellation fees as reported in “Late-cancel changes not a game changers—yet.”
Email Patrick Mayock or find him on Twitter.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or its parent company, STR and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to comment or contact an editor with any questions or concerns.