The Guest Room of the Future from Rebel Ventures

I have recently read an article referencing the impact of Air B&B on the Hotel sector and how this concept has changed many travelers perspective of a traditional hotel stay. Most obviously Air B&B has opened up the ability in many instances to have more space and often cooking (or simple food preparation) opportunities. While cooking facilities may not be on the Hotel horizon it certainly had me thinking what would the Guest Room of the Future look like?

Recent Experiences

I thought about the last 12 months and my own usage of Hotels during this time which, unfortunately apart from one experience, have related to being in quarantine.

First, was my first quarantine experience in Singapore with what started at the Grand Hyatt. All in all, first impressions were that this was an excellent venue (compared to some short straw locations). Even though our room was approximately 44㎡, after a few days of use, the problems checked in. The first issue was that 40% of the room was bathroom. For 5 star hotels, this is not uncommon and follows one of the observations of Regent founder Bob Burns that highlighted 80% of travelers waking time in a Hotel room is spent in the bathroom. Certainly this is still very true if your target market is business travelers or hard core, time short, tourists who are out early and back late. For our 3-week quarantine at the Grand Hyatt, though the room was comfortable it lacked space for living.

We cut our quarantine at the Grand Hyatt short though and moved to a serviced apartment by Citadines. We were fortunate to receive a room that was slightly larger at 48㎡ though what a difference! Within basically the same space we had a bathroom, separate toilet, kitchen, bedroom and a lounge large enough to take a 4 seat table and full size couch. Another highlight was a high stud ceiling and almost floor to ceiling windows throughout. Yes it’s fact that the bathroom and bedroom were minimalist in size however a small price to pay the sanity of space that could be fully utilized at times we were not sleeping or well, you know.

Our third quarantine experience was at the Grand Mercure Auckland with a room size of approximately 28㎡. In this case, we had separate rooms, so the space should have been adequate for 1 person. Again, though, we noticed some inefficiencies in layout and space planning. The only place to watch TV was sitting in bed and I don’t consider having to sit in bed to watch TV a comfortable experience! Another issue was the massive lack of usable electrical outlets. I’m pretty sure if we both were in the same room, there would have been a lot of issues just being able to move around the room.

Future Requirements

These experiences, coupled with the referenced article, have me thinking what will the post-pandemic traveler be looking for in the guest room of the future? Yes, no doubt we will still have the business road warriors who want a good gym (or so they say), great breakfast and may not see the room again until post business dinner. As well as the time poor tourist group who often only sees their hotel room in the dark hours. But what about the rest of us?

Give us space to LIVE – For me I would forgo a large bed area and bathroom area to secure a separate (even if small) lounge area. Apart from feeling less like a hotel room it also allows traveling couples/families to operate without waking the whole house up.
Make it comfortable -have at least 2 comfortable (and not designer uncomfortable) reading/TV watching chairs even if they are multi-purposed (desk chair)
Leave the water hogging tub out – I can certainly forgo a bathtub. Even my wife doesn’t use them when there’s one around. If you do put one in, don’t even bother if its not large enough for me (180cm) to bathe without my ankles being around my ears and my top half freezing out of the water while my nether parts stay warm. And for goodness sakes, use mixers! Dual hot and cold tap controls are annoying.
Give us lots of places to plug in – make sure the guest rooms of the future have international plug sockets – lots of them – as well as USB sockets in strategic locations around the room. And now with so many people used to Zoom Video calls and the like, be prepared to offer good old wired internet connectivity as the wireless in many hotels is not fit for purpose. Is it time to upgrade to Fibre?
Make public spaces safe – communal spaces will always be needed, however, such spaces may need to become more intimate in size and nature rather than mass. Even businesses are getting away from open-plan concepts.

The Path Forward

By using feedback from your customer experiences and awareness of the continued impact of alternate accommodation sources such as Air B&B, you can prepare for the next phase of your Hotel usage when planning your renovations, upgrade or new builds.