Changing guest expectations are reshaping the hotel development landscape, according to a panel of experts speaking at the Resort & Residential Hospitality Forum in Greece.
Timothy Walton, senior vice president Western Europe, international hotel development, Marriott Hotels International said that while aspects such as “the blended purpose of travel” and “barefoot luxury embracing sustainability” had often been cited, he identified a more enduring theme of “experience over extravagance”.
Curated feel
Walton noted that Marriott had recently opened an 11-room boutique property outside Bologna in Italy which embodied this shift away from a commoditised approach to a more curated feel. “Elizabeth Country House is an historic residential conversion with a communal kitchen for cookery classes and an atelier for pottery lessons, plus a courtyard for dancing,” he said, adding: “Customers are also seeking something different when redeeming points, such as reserving tickets for F1 or Manchester United, or booking the Ritz Carlton yacht. It all plays into the desire for experiences over things.”
Alexis Pipilis, head of hospitality & business development at Greek investor Prodea, said that “post Covid, people want to live a genuine experience”. He added that schemes which were low density and “horizontally developed” appealed more than “uniblocks”, with the most successful properties catering for an “outdoor lifestyle... on beaches and mountains”. He added: “If you are not active in that respect in your investment thesis, you are probably going to get it wrong. Horizontal developments give a sense of security and of space.”
For Pavlos Gennimatas, managing director - European Living, Hines, there are a number of guest motivations in play. He suggested that the basics of a winning proposition were “accessibility, proximity to an airport, having a private beach or similar, but also political stability”. He added that hospitality represented15 percent of the firm’s investment platform, so it was taking a “much more opportunistic” approach. He noted: “This translates into matching the right capital to the right product with the right pricing. Location for us is a much broader factor - the right location is where you can achieve this alignment.” He cited glamping, an area in which Hines is actively investing. “It’s important for a younger social demographic and matched with an authentic experience of being in nature, it can be really unique.”
Design perspective
Maria Vafiadis, managing director, Mkv Design, added a designer’s perspective. “Over the last few years, we have seen hotels and residential really learn from each other,” she said. “Hotels now need to offer a ‘home from home’ experience, not a sterile environment. At the same time, residential, and especially branded residences, have learned what hotel design is about, and how to add hotel type services on top. Residences are starting to look more like luxurious hotel suites.” Turning to the sector’s international challenges and opportunities, she noted the advent of a kind of “crossover of different trends from different parts of the world”.
She cited, by way of example, the merging and borrowing of expectations around kitchen amenities in residences. “In the Middle East, the kitchen has always been hidden away as they have professional chefs. But guests from the West want open plan kitchens, so now we have residences that have both.” She said that this cross-cultural experience had led to developments in Europe “with a small scullery, plus a nice breakfast, family kitchen” and Middle Eastern schemes “with professional kitchens as well as a breakfast bar with open-kitchen areas”. Bathrooms, too, are becoming very important, “not tucked away with no light, becoming as important as the bedroom”, typically with a wellness or natural element. She summarised the changes as “both a crossroads of different cultures and a crossover of residential and hotel design”.