LONDON—Independent hoteliers are under more pressure to economize but not comprise as they combat the heavy scale and marketing clout of their branded counterparts.
The way forward appears to be efficient, intelligent design to help cut costs without sacrificing service but instead enhancing it, according to speakers during a panel titled “Stripped!” held during May’s Boutique & Lifestyle Hotel Summit.
With lobbies and rooms being used in new ways by new generations of guests, every hotel offering’s guest value and every room’s size is under intense consideration.
“We need to shrink but think. Today is a grab-and-go world and also a shower-and-go world. Are baths needed? Even desks and wardrobes are now being questioned,” said Muriel Muirden, VP of strategy for hotel design company WATG.
Two tech necessities are more electricity sockets, preferably by beds, and flat-screen TVs that have had a dramatic effect on room size and design, panelists agreed.
“Desks might be the next thing to disappear—that is, if you can find the right way for guests to work,” added Robert Nadler, CEO of Nadler Hotels.
“Technology is only important if it makes things easier, but we have to be careful not to be too complicated. I was recently in a hotel with 20 switches, none of which seemingly turned off the light I wanted turned off. On the other side of that is that some people want to turn off the lights with their iPads,” said Markus Lehnert, VP of international hotel development of Marriott International’s Moxy Hotels, which debuts in 2015.
Critically important to a sense of perceived value is that staff understands technology as much as guests do and not just for the technology the hotel provides.
“Do not underestimate the insight of the designer. Generally, if you ask an hotelier to design a room, it will look like a cigar box. We’re being told that guests today only want one movable item—that is, the chair,” Lehnert said.
Public areas
The sense of value imparted to guests begins the moment they consider the lobby, which increasingly is a space for “me,” not “us,” panelists said.
“Public areas now have to be personal, not larger, and lobbies might have five different roles during each day,” Muirden said, who added that lobbies also lead a separate life as part of the local community.
But that is not merely with the goal of increasing direct revenue.
“We’ve minimized public areas, which might be a question with the millennials. While, of course, everything evolves, for me lobbies are not about additional revenue generation, which I want to be outside the property in local businesses, which in turn helps all of us,” Nadler said.
The most commonly cited guest request—and something that went against everything previously mentioned in the panel—was more space, Nadler said.
“In an urban hotel, people will pay for square footage, but do they want to be shown the way to their room? Probably not. And do they want to pay for that? Absolutely not,” he added.
Time poor
Another secret to understanding urban travelers and their sense of value is to grasp that they are time poor, although panelists said that does not obviate the necessity to do away with the human element. Service remains king.
“This, too, is a generational issue. In an urban setting, we have less time, but in a resort context, we should focus more on customer care,” Lehnert said.
Muirden said that in resorts the new “gods” driving value and revenue are yoga, wellness and cycling. Wellness also is experiencing an upsurge of popularity in urban settings.
“Be rigorous, have a clear brief and realize that your wish list might be sometimes constrained by location and building. Having different-sized rooms can help to increase value, as it allows guests to gain that with choice,” Nadler said.