PRAGUE, Czech Republic — Developing and maintaining luxury hotels takes a lot of planning and data-driven decisions, but equal amounts of emotion and soul are required, too.
Across Europe, grand luxury hotels are pieces of history that require careful consideration when renovating or updating. Henning Matthiesen, founder and CEO of Matthiesen Hotel Project Management & Consulting, said those considerations begin with a deep dive into a building’s history, soul and essence.
Having a full understanding of the stories of a luxury hotel’s bricks and guests will allow the correct design and offerings to be added to the building, he said. From there, there's room to experiment with the property's operating model.
“Identifying the history can lead to materials and design that will be timeless. We want the situation where guests ask, 'Where did you buy this bed, this lamp?' And those questions from people who might own five homes,” he said during a panel at the Inspire: Luxury Hotel Conference hosted by the International Luxury Hotel Association.
Hotel renovations by nature are often costly, and in the luxury segment, that elevated cost comes with risk. Felicity Black-Roberts, senior vice president of development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Hyatt Hotels Corp., said it is evident that the choice of materials used in luxury hotels should be ones that “will stay in this room for a long time and create return on investment for owners.”
Finding the balance of long-term sustainable design in a luxury hotel renovation is crucial, she added. Things such as rugs and carpets that need to be changed can be swapped out later on to give the hotel a fresh look without compromising the overall soul and luxuriousness of a property.
Tarek Hegazy, principal and creative director of Living Design, said he always has had difficulty in truly understanding what “resilience” means in hotel design. He asked if resilience is one of the pillars of sustainability.
“It’s a bit of a buzzword,” he said.
James Dilley, architect and director of Jestico + Whiles, said he doesn't like hotel design that's described as “timeless.” The panel agreed that luxury hotels evolve, even the most celebrated and traditional properties.
Tina Norden, principal of design company Conran & Partners, said thoughtful renovation and design can result in immediate value to hotel owners. She gave an example of a hotel she worked on in London, the Great Eastern Hotel — first opened in 1894 — which is now known as the Andaz London Liverpool Street and is affiliated with Hyatt. Its renovation 10 years ago used materials that could last, and its classic bathrooms were kept intact. The hotel was acquired by Hyatt and partner JER in 2006 from the holding company of Conran’s founder, Terence Conran.
All design decisions need to be supported by a hotel's owners, said Barbara Wiethoff, partner at JOI-Design. And quality is not cheap.
“And designers need to be part of the conversation from the very start,” Wiethoff said.
Dilley said all designers have seen examples of where friction between passion and costs ends up with a finished product that is “vanilla and timid.”
Details and diligence
But durability in hotel design is not the same as resilience, panelists said. A nice bed and a good shower are givens in most hotels, and certainly in luxury ones, so the issue becomes what is layered on top of that, Black-Roberts said.
“That starts with great service. People play a huge part in bringing a hotel to life,” she said.
Luxury hotel guests often perceive service as the next major differentiator.
“Designers create the stage, and the staff perform on it every day. … There is a level of activation that needs to carry on to have hotels remain in guests’ memories,” Black-Roberts said.
Matthiesen agreed.
“Create passion and drive every day and aim for 150% performance,” Matthiesen said. “Passion is contagious, and luxury hotels have to be driven from the heart."
There are luxury hotels across Europe that are more than 150 years old, Matthiesen said. Yet, these properties are still market leaders. Why? The answer often lies in the incremental details, he added.
“Is this still the right wine glass for our guests?” Matthiesen said.
Hotel designers have the responsibility of relating the stories of what they have used in a hotel’s design, why they have chosen certain things and the thinking behind how a hotel was renovated, Norden said.
“It’s the memories you bring home” that make a luxury hotel feel true to form, Hegazy added.
Plus, the priorities and desires of luxury hotel guests are changing with each generation, Hegazy said, citing the need for a luxury property to emphasize sustainability and a connection to its local community.
“The next generation’s tick boxes are totally different to ours,” he said.
Matthiesen added ultimately luxury-hotel guests are looking for uniqueness.
“It is about emotions per square meter,” he said.
Luxury hotel brands
When hotel brand companies enter the luxury space, they bring rules on development protocols and service and brand standards, Hegazy said.
“The data is checked, and then the operators give us a specific brand to work with. Every category comes with different tools,” he said.
Black-Roberts added that decisions on where Hyatt goes and with what come from data.
“Layer on top of that the question, will it work? A lot comes through the deal leader, who knows that market intimately. There is a huge amount of investment in luxury from both owners and brands. We do categorize an opportunity. What effect will it have on our network performance. There are only two cities in the United Kingdom we’d put in a Park Hyatt,” she said.
This is where it pays to be cautious, even in the highest hotel segments, Matthiesen said.
“Brief is important, but then immediately boundaries are set, and in luxury that might not be the way forwards. And then there are cost limitations even in a luxury hotel, after which you have to live with the finished hotel for the next 25 to 40 years,” he added.
Hotel brand development — even in the luxury space — has evolved into a science.
“If there is a brand, there must be a base level of specification,” Black-Roberts said, adding that specification books can run to several hundred pages in length. “... We do not want the same hotel everywhere, but we want a thread. Specifications are based on guest data.”
A year ago, Hyatt acquired Standard International and its portfolio of lifestyle hotel brands. Black-Roberts said at the time it was “not lost on us … that Hyatt could subdue that brand.”
Instead, Hyatt took a proactive step to keep the authenticity of Standard and its hotel brands, she said.
“We created a subgroup, lifestyle, and [Standard founder] Amar [Lalvani] stayed in New York with his team. We have grown a protective cloak around lifestyle to include [other Hyatt brands] Andaz and Thompson. We have separate teams to develop and manage these hotels. We paid a lot of money for it,” she said.