Business Traveller turns time traveller this month, looking far into the future of the hotel industry. And what do we see when visiting the hotel rooms of tomorrow? The changes are more subtle than you'd think: they are bigger and more expensive, and they have larger, flatter TVs. Those irksome bedside panels have disappeared completely, TV shows are now on-demand, and the broadband is fast, wireless and secure. And a key detail, thanks to a noble band of customer-friendly hotel designers, is that this updated in-room technology is all pretty easy to use.
"We want to make things simple – we don't do technology for the sake of doing technology," says Kevin Lien, director, design, Starwood Asia-Pacific Hotels & Resorts. "Technology is for guest comfort. We want guests to find everything, and be able to use it. As a company, we are trying to make the whole hotel experience more humane."
Many of the most futuristic bells and whistles – such as retina-scan entry, robot butlers that never ask for tips, corridors that light up and lead guests to their rooms, beds that disappear into the ceiling and "intelligent" bathtubs that mould to the shape of the user's body – are unlikely to appear any time soon. Even when they do, they will show up only in the priciest, most avant-garde crash pads. "It's about user behaviour, not the best technical gizmos," says Charles Reed, chief executive officer of interTouch, a global provider of broadband services that serves about 250 hotel clients in Asia, including every Hyatt in China.
Hotel managers are actually very conservative. Before they spend piles of money to install new technology in hundreds or thousands of rooms, they want to make sure that it is reliable and easy to use, and that it is not a passing fad. Consider the technologies that have come and gone in the last decade: internet TV was hot for a while, and so were in-room faxes. Both have been consigned to the dustbins of hotel history, because most guests simply didn't use them.
In fact, on closer inspection, the rooms of tomorrow are really the rooms of yesterday – retro is in. "My personal feeling is, if you look at design five years ago, the very modern clean look, that look is on its way out," says Lien. "Now glamour is in. The amount of positive feedback about Wynn Resort in Macau is unbelievable. It is classical, but not glitzy. It is decorative, but not gold and black, it is toned-down classical."
The overall trend is toward a homier, more residential feel, but with all the key business technology in place, says Christian Hassing, general manager of the new Mandarin Oriental Tokyo. "In terms of design," he says, "the tendency is to provide residential settings with subtle materials in light colours, including wooden floors, surface carpets, prominent artwork and extensive in-room entertainment with large plasma TVs, global TV and radio stations, surround sound, video-on-demand and wireless high-speed internet."
There is no shortage of neat new ideas. Some chains have flirted with the idea of turning hotel rooms into retail showrooms, where guests can try out – or buy – many of the items on display. Others have considered lifestyle hotels that are built around themes and co-branded. Can you picture a workout-oriented Nike hotel brought to you by a major hotel chain? Believe it.
Many of the most futuristic proposals are showcased at conventions in Las Vegas and elsewhere. These include rooms that help you dress, by scanning the labels in your clothes and suggesting the best combinations, and news, TV, and room service menus that offer your favourite comfort food.
Other potential far-in-the-future perks include: pads on the bathroom floor that read your vital signs, and suggest nutrients that you may be lacking; porta-kitchens that can be dropped into a room, then removed; and doors that can be unlocked with a quick fingerprint or retina scan. But when the salesmen show up at the doors of hotels, selling their cutting-edge gadgetry, they are often told to go away. Guests, it seems, just want to do their work and watch their TV.
"No matter where we are – China, India or Latin America – we want to be able to conduct business as if we were in our office at home," says Reed of interTouch. "When you're investing considerable amounts of money in business trips, if you're trying to get your boss to sign off on an expense form for thousands of dollars, he wants to know that you've been as effective as possible while you've been abroad."
For business travellers internet access is key, but the online technology is not advancing all that fast. Easy-to-use wireless internet is already standard in most five-star guestrooms, and there will be a slow but steady move toward faster networks with bigger coverage areas, including in a car or taxi.
The current focus is on security, says Reed, but that is not something guests are likely to notice. "Users don't want files corrupted, or people to see their transactions, and they want to be able to access company data from abroad," he says. "More and more business people go through virtual private networks [VPN], and that's due to security. Hotels have to provide internet in such a way that any corporate VPN can be used."
The future is arriving faster on the entertainment side, where everything centres around the old-fashioned TV screen. Marriott has announced a TV upgrade with better pictures, bigger screens, more programming, and – this is a relief – only a single remote. Sheraton and Hyatt have similar plans, including TVs that allow guests to connect laptops, camcorders, cameras, video games, iPods and so on. In some cases, the screen splits in half, becoming part TV and part computer desktop.
But the shows on TV will become more retro and homey, according to Reed. "People don't tend to watch big blockbuster films in their rooms," he says. "But a shorter, more personal content would be very compelling: Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal, local sports and other light entertainment. Thirty minutes is about max."
Within hotel groups, some brands are more forward-looking than others. At Starwood, W Hotels tends to lead the way, and it is unveiling a new development that is decidedly retro: phone booths. They're not actually booths, they're really private pods with curtains and a writing pad, says Lien.
"These days everyone has a mobile, everyone is shouting into the mobile, you have no privacy, and it's loud and kind of annoying," he says. "We are taking the idea of a traditional phone booth and sneaking it into a little protected environment, where if you're screaming into your mobile, nobody can hear you." The W phone-pods are not high tech, but they certainly are thoughtful.
Starwood's new Aloft brand, which will debut in 2009 in Asia, particularly in Beijing, has the DNA of W Hotels, but is aimed at the four-star market. The Aloft Beijing, Haidian hotel will bring to Asia a very American concept: self check-in using a touch screen. The guest can approach the screen, punch in his or her name, room preference and credit card number, and – presto! – out pops the key card. It won't replace the reception counter, says Lien, but it does offer another check-in option.
There is one virtual certainty about the hotel rooms of tomorrow – they will be more expensive. "Based on general global statistics, hotel prices have grown drastically in key cities over the past few years, because there is a high demand for hotels which can provide a high level of comfort, a wide choice of facilities and high levels of personalised service," says Hassing. "That in turn requires higher initial investments, quicker redevelopment of concepts and more frequent property upkeep, plus the increased cost of hotel staff, which in turn would make it very challenging to reduce hotel prices."
Wellbeing perks: the new must-have
The Peninsula Tokyo, which is due to open this September, will feature exactly the sort of user-friendly business tools that travellers actually want.
Each guestroom will have a roving mobile phone that the guest can take out of the room and use in the spa, restaurants, boardroom and elsewhere. It will operate like a regular room phone, and the guest will get the number prior to check in; the phone will also work outside the hotel, anywhere in the Tokyo area. The new Peninsula rooms will also feature a one-touch panel for lights and curtains, and a video-on-demand system that will deliver and print up-to-date entertainment information about the city.
In terms of comfort, expect to see more in-room spa-style offerings, like the "bathologist" at Westin Beijing. Yes, the hotel offers a free bathologist service in its renewal rooms: she shows up with a choice of scents and oils, dolls up the room, adjusts the lights, and delivers a drink and flower petals, a hydrating face mask, and other serenity-inducing items.
Another fun feature that may soon become ubiquitous is an iPod cradle connected to a good sound system. Guests will walk in, plug in their iPod, and listen to music and charge their player at the same time. It's a small, inexpensive device, but the listener has his own music and feels more at home.
Such feel-good, stay-calm perks are the wave of the future, says Christian Hassing, general manager of Mandarin Oriental Tokyo. "As a result of today's 24/7 lifestyle, most individuals get less and less time to relax, which has created a new niche in terms of quick-relief stress reduction activities," he says. "That has created a fast-growing 'wellness industry', which has been included within luxury hotels as a vital part of their business."
A mania for wireless
The year is 2020, and you've just arrived at your destination on a 25-seat mini jet, and checked in to your boutique hotel. You weren't listening when the robot butler explained how everything works, and as soon as it leaves, you're in trouble.
Yes, it is one of those hotel rooms: the kind where you can't turn on the lights. You need tech support to turn on the TV, the phone is ultra-complicated, and the room itself is too hot. No matter what you do, nothing helps and, worst of all, everything is automatic. There is not a switch in sight. Welcome to the nightmare hotel room of the future.
Thankfully, this is exactly the nightmare that hotels are trying to avoid. Generally speaking, hotel designers and hotel managers disagree about what to do with guestrooms. The hotels want everything to be simple, easy to see, and easy to use, while designers want to hide or even eliminate all switches, plugs, thermostats, remote controls, and other clutter. User-unfriendly nightmares most often occur when designers win the day.
"Interior designers always think that switches destroy their design, and they always try to hide the switches," says Kevin Lien, director of design at Starwood Asia-Pacific Hotels & Resorts. "We tell them: you don't need to conceal everything – put it on the tabletop. For us, user-friendliness is everything. Guests shouldn't have to bend down and look for a plug."
Wires, however, will vanish completely in the rooms of the future, because designers and hotels both want them to vanish. Printers, faxes, phones and laptops will all be wireless, says Charles Reed, chief executive officer of interTouch.
"The future is wireless, and that comes in two types," he says. "One is large wireless internet coverage in major gateway cities, and also devices in rooms will all be wireless. You walk in, fire up your laptop or PDA, and that's going to be connected to the TV screen and music screen. I don't foresee so much one device that does everything, but the interconnection between devices will be much easier."
