New Room at the Holiday Inn

 

New Room at the Holiday Inn:  An insider's peek at the chain's new look 

 

 
Months ago, in a secluded warehouse outside of Boston, a crack team of designers from firms Continuum and ai3 assembled a top-secret prototype that would, according to internal data, change the Holiday Inn brand forever. It was an advanced, new kind of “environment”—one where guests could more easily connect. The consultants used 800 slabs of foam core to build it, then spent weeks analyzing foot-traffic patterns. What could this revolutionary, futuristic space possibly be?

It’s the lobby.

Actually, there’s a fancier name. Holiday Inn is calling it the “Social Hub.” When the new design replaces existing foyers starting

next month, it will concentrate every communal amenity—business center, TV lounge, bar, game room—into a continuous, L-shaped space. “Consumers use Facebook, but they still need human contact. They want to be on laptops, but out in the open,” says Eric Nicolas, Holiday Inn’s director of global brand management. “That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

Wait a minute. Haven’t hotel chains spent the past decade investing zillions in Web portals and Wi-Fi upstairs in the guest rooms? Indeed they have. But recent studies about millennial maladies like “Facebook fatigue” have suggested people are again longing for live interaction. “The pendulum is swinging back,” notes Patricia Wallace, a professor at Johns Hopkins who studies the Web’s social effects. “More people are seeking a hybrid lifestyle that combines the best features of the online world with more human contact.” Holiday Inn’s hoping that contact will happen in its Social Hub. “It’s funny,” says veteran hospitality consultant Clark Wolf. “We used to call this ‘meeting in the cocktail lounge.’”

No reservations at the Inn for next year? Chill. We’ll take you on a tour right now.

Full article here

Comments

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