What is Next in Hospitality Design? Emerging Design & Paradigm Shift

Neighborhood Cafe’ at Indigo Patong, Phuket

More than ever our world needs Hospitable Thinking: how can we delight you?

The COVID pandemic has upset our lives from being social beings loving to gather in cities, in groups and at large events, forcing us to become cautious individuals craving more private settings while still yearning to connect safely. Suddenly we moved from social engagement, hot desking and inter-personal experiences to work and study from home. Will COVID forever change how we socialize and how will this impact hospitality design?

Our goal has always been giving joy to people and creating fond memories. How do we re-purpose and re-imagine hospitality spaces? The key is to cherish the human side to what we do.

Ten key design elements:

1.       Psychological safety

Drive-to-destinations create a renewed sense of comfort and freedom. On the spur of the moment you jump into your car safely to explore the great outdoors and countryside destinations. Suddenly the roads less traveled are more appealing, as cities closed down and became void of pulsating activities. The thought of using public transportation is stressful and a potential hazard to your health. As work and schooling has gone digital, we can now live and conduct business anywhere without a necessity to meet in person. Hospitality more than ever will be a respite, a safe, inspiring and rejuvenating home-away-from-home experience. Digital nomads will increasingly be on the move, staying months in one location before moving on which can offer new opportunities for hotels and resorts.

2.       Be able to change quickly: flexibility and transformation

Conference hotels and suburban business hotels near airports or freeways as well as malls are becoming vacant relics. How do we re-imagine and re-purpose to bring invigorating life back to our cities? The key will be to provide unique cultural experiences and lifestyle choices.

Hotels may become partially residential / work-from- home flexible units, as a cultural bridge between traveler and locals, providing amenities for and involving locals. Parking requirements should be reconsidered by planning authorities to create greener urban areas with outdoor dining, flexible festival / arts spaces. Ethnic and local farm-to-market food trucks replace self-serve buffets. The direct involvement of local residents will be enriching for hotel guests and provide a new vivid economic revival of small towns and large cities, creating an emotional connection and a more authentic sense of place. 

Moving away from the anticipated to the unexpected creates opportunities for something truly unique to your brand soul essence. What has forever changed is the demand for flexibility, weaving design together, and changing materials.

The key becomes finding methods to re-purpose hotel buildings to provide more flexibility in the building programming in order to increase revenue generating spaces. Event spaces will drastically reduce in size and be re-purposed as digital events take over large live events. We still crave entertainment and religious/cultural venues and events, but they will be increasingly be broadcasted or smaller and more intimate in size.

Midsized hotels can become weekend road trip / mini break destinations. Hotels will become accelerators, not disruptors. The key is flexibility as spaces may change functionality 3 times daily.

3.       Human centered design strategies

The human factor is key: Inclusion and visibility of all staff, making necessities a ritual and special. Instead of being Instagram-able, the focus will turn to creating memorable experiences to see, smell, and touch base with all senses, creating unique lasting values. Brands will be moving from conforming to celebrating opinions and originality, being strong in your brand voices. A move from similarity to diversity.

The key role is to provide positivity: embrace nature, promote local business, being an oasis for locals and guests. How can we delight you, surprise you and immerse you with our local nostalgia: stories that came before and stories that will be made, making your stay significant.

Hospitality will increasingly provide experiences / lifestyle choices. Human emotions are contagious. Instill and encourage a growth mindset among staff: success is learning, improving yourself, trying something new, having fun and sharing local pride. What do you always wish you could have done? Focus on your brand voice by pushing new protocols of speaking in a consistent language. Teach and embrace new ways to think and welcome guests.

Make your ethos /story timeless. Focus on all human touch points, as all your people are promoting the experience. The brand voice will make your guests feel welcome and safe. Infuse your story with inspiration and provoke emotion connections. Celebrate location/neighborhood and its people. Where is the local artistry? Encourage common ground: eliminate front of house/back-of-house separation, remove barriers and let your guests see how people are working.  Stimulate entrepreneurship and view clients as partners. Encourage local pride by creating  photo walls of local sights photos taken by staff.

4.       Moving from attention to detail to detailed attention

Be fantastical: transcending between reality and dream, keep reinventing yourself. Guests and locals want to be transported in time and educated. Focus on the quality of timelessness while being narrative conscious. Do something remarkable. Be abnormal. Be uniquely you.

5.       Wellness & sustainability

Well design is all about being and looking well: wellness is a selfish gateway to sustainability. Wellness is not just medical; health is wealth:

• meditation, workout, healthy eating

• human spirit-nostalgia that pulls memories

• emotional human needs

• surprise & delight

• reduce recirculated air, increase natural ventilation

• thermal customizable quiet comfort

• enhance acoustics

• humidity control

• emphasize physical awareness

• create outdoor fitness areas and provide trail maps, walking tours, local climbing, bicycling, Tai Chi and yoga opportunities

Our role as designers will be to encourage experimentation + play. How does the interior space make you feel? How do we blend psychology, intuition & expertise?

6.       Renewable luxury

Search for the soul of the maker when sourcing furniture, art, finishes and materials: less fabricated, less wasteful reliance on transportation and packaging can create and stimulate a revival of craft in the local community. Less is luxury. Imperfection-ism can celebrate the soul of a material, and encourage the world of the amateur by embracing tactility and imperfection, inspired by Japanese concept of wabi-sabi: a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. Wabi-sabi encourages us to focus on the blessings hiding in our daily lives, and celebrating the way things are, rather than how they should be, as we search for fulfilment beyond materialism.

Juxtapose modern simplistic form with soft undulated curves, restraint with exaggerated shapes. The goal is to take your breath away and immediately suspend disbelief, to delight with surprise, and create playful moments. Luxury is renewable, security is not a luxury.

7.       Biophilia

Nature will be taking over cities, buildings and interiors, generating a re-enchantment of the natural world. Our cities and suburbs will again celebrate the magic of nature and reconnect us to the environment. Natural and locally sourced material selections with an emphasis on how it feels to touch combined with visual and auditory responses. Inspired by nature, a cool palette is relaxing and grounding for respite and restauration, whereas a vibrant color palette inspire and stimulate action and energy.

Adding natural light and a direct visual connection between the outdoors to event spaces will generate a sense of wellness. Create spaces that are more fluid and layered. Hotels can become an inviting oasis by including spaces for contemplation as well as outdoor F&B seating for both guests and local residents.

Rooftop bar at 32nd floor of Westin Kolkata, India

8.       Food and Beverage

Focus on experiences, by creating playful moments which are both immersive and relaxing. As seating will be spaced further apart, exterior seating and openness to the outdoors becomes more important. Chefs-table experiences will offer private dining experiences and highly curated offerings. Buffets will be replaced by specialty gourmet markets with local products and delivery, complemented by curated bar and tasting rooms. Hotel restaurants could become incubators for young or retired local chefs and function as a both a social club and communal kitchen catering to the local community as well as hotel guests by initiating weekend community kitchen programming catering.

Restaurants become a destination by reclaiming rooftop terraces and upper floors for specialty, curated third party specialty F&B events with chef residency programs. Restaurants can grow fresh produce and become urban farms by using hydroponics, growing plants without soil and much reduced water consumption, becoming partially their own farm-to-table. Event spaces will increasingly become flexible rooms, as board rooms with private kitchen dining lounges, workshop luncheons and mixers.

9.       Human technology

Touchless entry, climate control, lighting and room personalization ability and on demand entertainment, UV germinating light, and a focus on using materials that are inherently antimicrobial and clean is key. Integrate new materials and technology while staying true to the ethos of brand and focus on the human health and wellbeing.

10.   Focus on guest experiences

Check-in with invisible un-intimidating temperature controls will maintain a warm welcoming ambiance without creating long lines and anxiety. A heartfelt thank you at checking out will make the stay memorable. Create a diverse community and generate demand for amenities by converting lower hotel room podiums to residences and serviced apartments, live-work-studios and a social club with events concierge.

Convert meeting rooms to flexible spaces that cater for a more diverse range of events such as luncheons, yoga classes, workshops as well as board meetings. Attract the local community by offering catering, delivery, and takeaway by local businesses and residents. Consider weekend community programming, art and crafts installations by local artists, pop-up retail venues, family games and events such as drive-in movies.

Goal: to re-awaken the soul, infuse the stay with inspiration and to evoke a strong emotional connection. Hospitality at its core is about creating experimental value and celebrating uniqueness.

“Hospitality design is all about the art of creating joy to people”