10 Hotel Trends That Will Shape Guest Experience in 2017
This is a question we here at Skift field every day, 24/7, 365 days a year, and one that we attempt to answer each and every one of those days. But as we all know, no matter what sector of travel that you fill in the blank, the trends continue to evolve day in and day out, building upon trendlines that have persisted throughout the course of the industry’s history.
When it comes to the hospitality industry, trends can be both ephemeral and everlasting. Some are just a flash in the pan; others have a staying power that last for decades. Last year’s trends were, in many ways, shaped heavily by consolidation and the drama that accompanies mega mergers and acquisitions, as well as the direct booking wars waged among hotels and their eternal frenemies, the online travel agencies.
Whatever ends up ultimately happening in 2017, we know it promises to be a year of great change. In 2017, we’ll even have a hotelier in the White House, for whatever that’s worth. And following last year’s multiple mergers and acquisitions, the lasting effects of those consolidations will finally begin to emerge, and become that much clearer.
So, what will this year’s trends in hotel guest experience bring? We won’t guarantee complete or absolute accuracy here, but given what’s happened in the past year, this is where we see the various trends culminating.
1. Co-Everything
When we said co-living could become the next big trend in hospitality, we weren’t kidding. While it’s doubtful that we’ll suddenly see a surge of pod hotels, poshtels, or co-living/co-working spaces flooding the hospitality scene in 2017, the tenets of “co-living” — that emphasis on collaboration and community — will permeate much of the hotel guest experience in 2017.
In some ways, we’re already seeing it. In September, for example, AccorHotels announced it was launching a new brand, Jo&Joe, largely inspired by co-living and hostels. And in December, Hilton Worldwide announced it too was considering launching an “urban Microtel” brand concept in the near future.
In 2017, expect to see even more emphasis an investment on communal areas, as well as on spaces and experiences that bring people together.
Because if there’s one advantage hotels have over home shares like Airbnb or HomeAway, it’s that role of being a real community fixture — a place where strangers can really gather together. Yes, an Airbnb might place you in the heart of a local neighborhood and you might be introduced to a local host but in many cases, the experience of a home stay can also be isolating. There’s no central hotel lobby where you can gather with other travelers or locals. So expect hotels to double down on this distinct advantage, and attempt in their own way, too, to make guests feel as though they really “live there.”
2. Good Design Goes Mainstream
Thoughtful design isn’t something exclusive to boutique hotels anymore — it’s the basic price of admission these days. Skift Senior Editor Greg Oates pointed out as much when he demonstrated how Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton are shedding their outdated design legacies.
Whether your hotel is ultra-luxury or bare-bones budget, your guests are going to expect it to look good, and feel good. And if current retail and interior design successes are any indication these days, they are proof that you don’t necessarily need deep pockets to have good design.
Design has always played a crucial role in hospitality, especially in defining that hotel’s brand or persona, and today’s guests are intuitively attuned to interpret design to fit their conceptions of what a hotel is really like, and if it’s the right fit, or lifestyle, for them.
With the entry of home furnishing and fashion names like West Elm, Restoration Hardware, and Karl Lagerfeld into the hotel space, expect the bar for good design in hotels to be raised even higher in 2017.
3. Experiences Beyond the Hotel
Whether or not Airbnb’s gamble on Trips succeeds or fails, the mere fact that the company has launched tours and activities should be a clear signal to hotels that they too need to be paying more attention to guests’ experiences not just inside the hotel but outside of it. They need a much more holistic approach to overall guest experience than they’re used to delivering.
We’ve already seen glimpses of this, especially in the luxury end of the spectrum, but we should expect more hotels in other categories doing the same, too. And if they aren’t, they need to start thinking about them sooner than later.
4. Concepts of Loyalty Need to Evolve
The loyalty program remains the backbone of so many different hotel companies’ master strategies, and that certainly won’t change at all in 2017. And while so many hotel companies are placing so much emphasis and scrutiny on their loyalty programs, we hope they won’t follow in the footsteps of the airlines.
In many ways, today’s overall travel loyalty landscape is one fraught with fragmentation. And in the case of the airlines, loyalty programs are increasingly rewarding gamesmanship and large spending over anything else. Perhaps that’s the strategy that makes most financial sense, but is it really the strategy that’ll win customers’ hearts and minds?
We’re not so sure, but if hotel brands want true loyalty from their guests, it’ll be hard to achieve that if they rework their programs to be more like the American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines of the world. They should also know better than to offer canned responses to loyalty members’ requests for more information when they decide to revamp their programs, too).
Hotel loyalty as it stands today is entering an age of awkward adolescence, the result of multiple consolidations and changing consumer behaviors and expectations. In 2017, hotels have a golden opportunity to redefine what real hotel loyalty is like and we hope they seize that chance.
5. Hospitality Will Rediscover Its Roots
A lot of times it can be easy to forget that, at the heart of it all, the travel industry — especially the hospitality industry — is really about people. We don’t mean to, but sometimes, in the pursuit of efficiency and profit, we as an industry have forsaken our biggest and most important resource: humanity.
Two Roads Hospitality CEO Niki Leondakis reminded us of that when she spoke at the Skift Global Forum in September. She said that the real disruption and innovation in hospitality doesn’t lie in technology or constructing great spaces. It’s about the service, and the people delivering it.
“The basics of hospitality have been compromised to make room for innovation, but the best innovation comes from the inside out,” Leondakis said. “Creativity happens when our employees are empowered and they are not feeling any fear.”
And in empowering those of us who work in hospitality to be better at delivering genuine hospitality, we’d also do well to heed restaurateur Danny Meyer’s advice, too: “The only way to motivate someone is to give them a higher purpose beyond a paycheck.”
6. “Local” Will Regain Its Meaning
Hotels need to stop thinking of bringing “local” into the hotel through artisanal hand soaps or “locally sourced, free-range bacon.” In the same vein of bringing more humanity back to travel and hospitality overall, hotels need to start thinking more about their local community, too.
In fact, we predict hotels will begin reclaiming the role they once had as community centers, only this time they’ll have evolved to solve challenges unique to modern times.
AccorHotels CEO Sebasiten Bazin touched on this concept with us when we spoke to him in July, fresh off Accor’s finalized $2.7 billion purchase of the Fairmont, Swissotel, and Raffles hotel brands.
“Ninety-nine percent of what we have done for 50 years has been based on the guy coming from outside of town,” Bazin said. “A traveler, from a different city, from a different country, which I think is interesting, but not too smart. Because we missed a population which is 100 times greater and better and easier: The guy living next door. The local inhabitants. They live around the hotel, or they go to an office around the hotel, and 90 percent of them never dared coming into the property, because they’re fearful that we’re going to be asking, ‘What’s your room number?’ They don’t need a room, but they may need a service.”
Reported by: skift.com
