Welcome to the World of Pre-Fab Hotel Rooms
Jennifer Billock May 09, 2017
Marriott International is hoping to save time and make more money by introducing pre-built hotel rooms.
Coming soon to a Marriott hotel near you: pre-fabricated rooms that have been built off-site and shipped to the property. Marriott is now using the modular construction process in an effort to grow business in North America, save time, and make more money.
So far the company has opened one hotel built with this method, the Folsom Fairfield Inn and Suites in Folsom, California. The units for this hotel were built in Boise and came with two rooms, a hallway, and a bed, desk, and toilet. This year, Marriott is expected to sign 50 more deals to make hotels in this fashion.
“The reason Marriott and others are embracing the modular construction process is that it can dramatically shorten the overall construction schedule, which leads to quicker occupancy and quicker return on investment,” Tom Hardiman, the executive director of Modular Building Institute, a non-profit trade association, told USA Today.
Essentially, the units are built off-site. Once finished, they’re shipped to the construction site where a crane stacks them into the already completed base and frame of the hotel. The contractors go in and connect all the electricity and plumbing. This method saves time in construction—indeed, the Folsom hotel was completed two months ahead of schedule and reduces the need to find specialty workers who are high in demand.
But the quick construction doesn’t mean a compromise on style or function.
“We think the construction is better executed in the factory, so it’s higher quality,” Karim Khalifa, Marriott’s senior vice president of Global Design Strategies, told USA Today. “With 100,000 rooms, some of those rooms look the same between hotels, so we can get that faster to market through a factory system. People actually remark that they are nice hotels, and they may not even know why.”
[Photo: Marriott]
And of Course Trump Hotels can source the Units cheaper in China,Cheaply ship them, Install in America with Undocumented Labor, and claim to have created more Jobs.
Disney did this with the Contemporary Resort at Disney World back in 1970.
Sort'a new, I guess (with finish & some furnishings, but we "Not so old timers" recall preparations for Hemisfair in San Antonio, when the new Hilton on the River was erected, a central core, and pre-fab rooms hoisted into place (much higher up than any Fairfield!).
This is a trend that you will see increasing in the coming years, not only in hotel construction but apartments and smaller office buildings. There is a huge labor shortage as well as cost to build. I am in the construction industry and know first hand the system that Marriott has signed off on. Works.