“Sometimes, you have to press pause and ponder what your guests want now and then redesign your spaces,” says Kurt Straub, Vice President, Operations, Hyatt India.
Certainly, when I think about what I want from a hotel room now, compared to even a few years ago, there is a world of difference. More charging points for starters — and it’s still missing in many hotel rooms. Given the way we work today, even that business desk in the room looks superfluous — could I get a laptop bed table instead?
Many concepts get dated, but often, hotels do not move fast enough to change these. “If you think about one concept that died long ago in India, it was the nightclub at the hotel,” observes Straub.
Ind eed, night birds who went out dancing to discotheques such as Hyatt Regency’s Djinns or ITC Maurya’s Ghungroo in the 90s became a rare breed in the early 2000s. As a result, many of the iconic nightclubs in Delhi’s five-star hotels shut down. Most of the new hotel developments in the new millennium have completely dispensed with the nightclub concept.
But then, as so often happens, life comes full circle. Nightclubs are back. So, The Lalit introduced Kitty Su, Hotel Samrat got the Lap and so on.
And what is Hyatt doing? “We are reinventing the night club. You can call it Version 3.0,” says Straub. This March, the Hyatt Regency at Bhikaji Cama Place in Delhi, incidentally the global hospitality chain’s very first hotel in India set up in 1983, launched an ultra luxe nightlife destination called House A. Straub says the concept is very different, as it is a private club and super-exclusive. Membership is by invitation only, and unlike other nightclubs, you can’t pay your way into this dual-level artistically-designed lounge, drink and dance space.
A change in service
Nightclubs are just one example of how cyclical guest tastes are and how hoteliers have to constantly evolve their offerings — from rooms to spaces to service. For older hotels, this is especially a big challenge.
In his beautifully written book The Disruptors’ Feast , former CEO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Frits Van Paasschen, describes how the chain tried to find out who was staying in their hotels and create offerings suited to their mindset.
“St Regis, for example, gave a respectful nod to its past, but took aim at modern-day sophisticates, connoisseurs of worldwide travel,” he writes. When the historical St Regis at New York was renovated, the bones of the building were kept intact, but a host of features, such as ultra-modern gyms, were added. Externally, it jettisoned frumpy window soffits. Internally, it brought about a change in the personality of its butlers. “Their personae went from Sir John Gielgud’s character in Arthur (1981) to Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts in Iron Man,” says Paasschen. More than half of St Regis’ butlers are now women, averaging 35 years in age — a wonderful example of keeping up with the times.
Fitting in fitness
The pace of evolution is really picking up. This May, American hotel chain Hilton announced the launch of a radical new concept — a room category with fitness equipment, and where carpets have been ripped out and you get performance flooring instead. An indoor bike, a training station, a digital fitness kiosk, and a meditation chair are part of the room that it calls Five Feet to Fitness.
The thinking behind this is that several guests, especially women travellers, may not like to go down to communal fitness centres. Currently, the rooms are available in San Francisco, but Hilton says it will expand into Atlanta, New York, Las Vegas and San Diego. Of course, you pay more for these rooms.
Hilton is not exactly a pioneer of this concept though. A few years ago, InterContinental Hotels launched a new wellness-focused hotel brand called Even Hotels, that offers in-room workout equipment, organic snacks and has fitness mantras on its walls. It’s good to see hotels limbering up and pushing boundaries.
(The writer is an editorial consultant with BusinessLine , who writes on consumer behaviour but keeps an interested gaze at the travel and hospitality sector)
