What should the airport hotel of the future be like? Michelle Harbi reports from our recent reader debate
Airport hotels – we’ve all stayed in one, but we’d probably rather be somewhere else. As one of our readers put it at our recent editor’s lunch: “You’re there because you have to be. You often have no choice. Certainly on business, you want the closest place for a bed before you board.”
What that means is that some companies haven’t always made as much effort to create a memorable experience for guests as with their city-centre properties, and this has given airport hotels a bad name.
So what do business travellers want to see in these kinds of properties in the future? That’s what a cross-section of our readers debated at our lunch, which took place at the Royal Automobile Club in London. The event was sponsored by Hong Kong’s Regal Airport Hotel (regalhotel.com), a property that has clearly been getting it right judging by the fact it has been named the world’s best airport hotel for the past seven years at our reader-voted Business Traveller Awards.
One participant, who spends a lot of time in airport properties, called for good soundproofing and quiet corridors. “I always ask for a top-floor corner room away from slamming doors. Airport hotels are busy all the time so they have great failings when staying for more than 1.5 nights. You go to one of the budget hotels and what are the walls made of? Plywood. So you hear everything.”
Another agreed: “You’ve come off an aircraft and your mind’s all over the place. You want to be asleep – you don’t want to hear noises.”
Other major considerations are good security, free and fast wifi, and kiosks for printing boarding passes. “A lot of hotels do it but there are a lot that don’t, and that really annoys me,” said one reader. More difficult for hotels to facilitate, but a major boon for those landing at anti-social times, is 24-hour occupancy from the time of check-in.
Recent technological advances were also welcomed. “I like that with Hilton you can pick your room online if you are an HHonors member – it brings up a floorplan and you can choose your upgrades and which room you want. I think this is a brilliant idea.”
Another said: “The whole point for me is checking out early to catch my flight. If I could check out the night before and just walk to the terminal, I could go from sleeping to being on the plane in 45 minutes without touching reception – effortless.” Some hotels are responding to this by allowing guests to drop keycards off in a box or to check out via a smartphone app, with bills sent to them via email.
Automated services can be helpful, but is minimal contact with hotel staff always a good thing? Opinion was mixed. One participant suggested that if staff were reassigned, then when you did need them, they wouldn’t necessarily be there to help.
Sometimes technology can go too far, as one reader pointed out: “One hotel in Dubai had a weird remote control for the TV – I arrived and wanted a sandwich but the room service was on the television, which didn’t work. Eventually I ended up calling down.”
Another agreed. “In one hotel they said I was able to download a sleep app, which would enable me to wake up when I needed. I said: ‘Excuse me, isn’t that called an alarm clock?’”
Making sure tech is user-friendly is particularly important in an airport hotel. “I do expect things to work first time,” someone said. “If you are only there for one night, then you don’t have time to mess around with things that don’t work.”
What about the humble workdesk? In these wireless times, some properties are introducing furniture that can be moved around, or doing away with tables altogether to create space. This, too, got a mixed reaction. “It’s about flexibility, but there’s no flexibility if it’s been removed,” one said.
Lastly, airport properties that are actually on-site will always win. “The hotel of tomorrow really should be in the boundary of the airport,” said one reader, who recalled in Dublin having to “go out of the terminal, walk a quarter of a mile and catch a shuttle bus or cross four really busy main roads”. And who wants to do that before or after a long flight?
To attend a future editor’s lunch, email Emma Gordon at [email protected], stating your name, job title, company and topics of interest.
