The design, functionality, and efficiency of your kitchen can make or break your hotel venture. Therefore, you need to design and equip your kitchen department for maximum productivity, quality, and savings in terms of finance and resources.
In the last couple of decades, hotel lobbies have become a centrepiece of guests' experience. In a matter of seconds, the guests soak in the atmosphere and make up their minds whether they like it or not. Therefore, making a fantastic first impression really counts.
As an independent hotel, you're no doubt competing with large hotel chains for your slice of the market. If you're looking at ways to grow it can be tempting to emulate the style of chains in a bid to attract the customers that are heading there. But it could be a costly mistake as consumer attitudes shift to unique experiences and authentic places to stay. In fact, putting your own personal stamp on the look of your hotel could boost reservations.
The two main features of boutique hotels are luxury and individuality. These are achieved through style, practicality and attention to detail. The style needs to tell the story of the hotel or its owner, and make it one of a kind. Everyone designing a boutique hotel should take the following six advices into account.
The most exciting thing about being a hospitality reporter is meeting interesting people with fascinating stories. Hospitality pros are formed in all walks of life. A former professor becomes a night clerk, a movie star becomes a partner in a large luxury hotel chain, and a civil engineer decides to build a hotel. The latest caught my attention on Crete, because, as Alexandros Kapetanakis told me, he decided to design and build a hotel to offer tourists and travelers the "opportunity to visit and enjoy this blessed land, while benefiting from extraordinary services and comfort in a space envisioned to meet their most stringent demands."
For over 100 years, the Ritz-Carlton Montreal has been more than just a hotel; it has been a bastion of the city's 'Great Gatsby' society. Through its doors, royalty and those of privilege have passed countless times. The hotel has hosted the finest social functions and weddings including the impromptu nuptials (only two hours' notice) of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. If these walls could talk, I am sure that they would speak volumes.
The success of Citizen M, Mama Shelter or Ace Hotel has been watched by the entire industry. As hoteliers around the world are raising their game, we ask ourselves: Who will set the new benchmark? We picked the hotel brands that, we believe, have the potential to become the next hits. Discover Zoku.
One of the many exciting things about the boutique hotel world is its ability to absorb exciting elements from disparate areas—from the art world to music, fashion and cuisine—anything it can harness to add character and interest to a hotel's offering. And this diversity of influences was highlighted this week at the BLLA Boutique Hotel Investment Conference, where a panel of luminaries from very different backgrounds converged to discuss their shared interest in the boutique space.
As the global hospitality marketplace evolves and travelers' preferences shift, what are the future trends that hotel designers need to anticipate? And how can we be visionary in our approach to each and every assignment?
My wife and I went out for dinner to a luxury hotel recently to celebrate our anniversary. We were offered a table next to the window overlooking a beautiful garden. The ambience was intimidating with a candle lit table and soft background music. But soon the evening started turning unpleasant when we realized that our table was right behind an extremely busy service station. We could hear the waiters mumble, sound of the cutlery and worst of all the irritating noise of the cheque printer every now & then. The restaurant failed to deliver (at least to us) what it was created for; experience, despite being a high specification space. We often come across plentiful of such instances where practicality and usability is compromised.
'After the party, there's the hotel lobby ….. And round about four you've got to clear the lobby,' R. Kelly once sang in his hit 'Ignition (Remix)', painting a debauched picture of how hotel lobbies functioned at the start of the 21st century. But what are these things called lobbies and how have they changed over the years?
Looking at the large online travel agencies recently you might be surprised to spot a few new names among the Starwoods and Marriotts. Tribute? Curio? Quorvus? Could these be new independent David's taking the hotel-world Goliaths by storm?
To stand out hotels must have more than a pretty face. Yet creating a great concept is not an easy task. Here are a few insights on the challenges and pitfalls of hotel concept development.
There are many indicators that might tell you it's time to renovate. Your TripAdvisor scores are dropping with guest complaints skewing increasingly towards facilities and maintenance rather than service. Or say you just received a conditional score on your annual inspection. It can even be as obvious as the faded green floral wallpaper that used to match the emerald porcelain tiles or the white shag carpeting now sporting various shades of gray.
When guests book a room at a hotel, their comfort level is of the upmost importance. Hotel staff provide turn down services, complimentary breakfasts and make every effort to make guests feel more relaxed while away from home.
Every experiential hotel recounts two kinds of stories: a) the story that embodies in a scenographic way, namely how it was «born" and what is the unique concept that materializes, and b) the extraordinary personalized story that orchestrates for every single guest, a story always harmonized with the first major narration.
If the 20th century was an era of conventional hotel design, the beginning of the 21st century has seen the arrival of new forms of hotel design. The growth in urban hotels, boutique hotels, resort hotels, and other permutations of the typical hotel model has yielded a great variety of hotel designs around the world. However, as architect James Law of the Hong Kong-based firm James Law Cybertecture writes, what may set the 21st Century era hotel design from its predecessors is the rapid innovation in everything. Raised design- consciousness and the rapid adoption of technology will yield a new generation of hotels that will be systemically different from before. “They will be different,” he says, “because the people who stay in them will stay there for new reasons, with new personalities, and with new lifestyles that never even existed before.”
It can be for self-expression, or to invoke a thought into its viewer, or to express a sentiment for the world – art has a multitude of reasons for its simple but striking presence. That's why it's common to find art in places where you can appreciate it the most. Art galleries, museums, even in unexpected places like a wall opposite the sidewalk or the cemented ground of a park. Where art belongs isn't an issue of where it is seen, but where it can be seen by those who need to, and those who want to.
Just what exactly do we mean when we call our property a 'lifestyle hotel'? Is it an expression that is readily understood by all our customers? I began wondering these questions and more during one of my all-too-familiar-yet-never-frequent-enough trips to sunny Los Angeles.
Why has the seemingly simple accommodations-sharing concept grown so quickly? The answer has a lot to do with Airbnb's platform approach.