Hotels Move Focus to Design-Forward Interiors
Jennifer Billock May 25, 2016
Some big box hotels are upping their game in the design realm to become more modern.
Marriott, Hyatt and Hilton hotels have recently taken the initiative to up their design game, emphasizing fashion and community spaces over the staid interiors the chains once touted. Some of the newly renovated properties include the JW Marriott Austin, Marriott Marquis Houston, Hilton Cleveland and Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport.
The renovations are part of an overall trend for more fashionable interiors, highlighting organic materials, open spaces, technologically functional workspaces and natural light.
“The whole move toward communal areas in chain hotels, with a popular central bar and group tables designed for mixed use, started 5-10 years ago and it’s just continuing even more so,” Kathleen Dauber, a partner at Hirsch Bedner Associates, a company that focuses on hotel design, told Skift. “There’s now much more hang out space. We want the guest to hang out in the lobby. We want them in the living room, the library, and as many different social spaces in the same area as possible.”
A benefit to the upgraded styling is more money spent on food and at the bar. The JW Marriott Austin, for example, has transformed its lobby area into a huge lobby bar that seamlessly transitions into guest services space. There are high ceilings, lots of windows, social gathering spaces and organic materials throughout. As a result, the Austin Business Journal says the JW Marriott Austin — with the new design — had the highest amount of liquor sales in the city in March, when music festival South by Southwest was in town.
“As downtown areas get denser, we’re losing that personal space we all want, so hotels want to bring that back to the guest,” Dauber told Skift. “I’ve seen a shift in how lobbies and lobby bars are utilized, because guests aren’t staying in their rooms anymore. There are more individual spaces where you can be alone, but not feel like you’re on display so that everyone sees you’re alone.”
[Photo: JW Marriott Austin]
Design-forward? I am still trying to figure cab-forward cars.
While many hotels could use updating, there's a few things we DO NOT want: 1) Peek-a-boo bathrooms. I don't want to see my coworker's hair ass at 5am. Nor do I want to be awakened by the bathroom lights at 5am. 2) Barn doors for the bathrooms. Some of these aren't bad, like how some SpringHill hotels do it -- the door completely closes & seals off the bathroom so that the smell, steam, and noises therein stay therein. I recently stayed at a Hampton where the barn door was useless. It sat about 1/2 inch away from the wall, didn't close all the way, and would roll open by itself. 3) Rooms without work desks and work chairs. I'm only in my 30s and I require these! Maybe the 20-somethings are blogging from the bed, but 8+ hours of reviewing docs is best done at a desk. 4) Properties so dim that I need a flashlight to find my way around.