Prioritizing Well-Being Could Be The Future of Hospitality

Like everyone else during this unusual time, we have been thinking of “what’s next.” Really though, not just thinking, but researching, strategizing, designing, and enacting our solutions. When the Hospitality Industry Network, NEWH, asked for submissions for their new publication focused on design innovations "beyond" COVID-19, we saw an opportunity to evaluate and visualize what hospitality will truly mean going forward.

Ensuring that guests have ample access to fresh air, light, and natural elements will be the driving force behind the layout of a hotel. Guest rooms are individualized, entered from exterior spaces, and oriented to take advantage of exterior elements. These guest room clusters create the overall footprint of the hotel and create public spaces and courtyards for all guests to enjoy.

Being hospitable means offering amenities to guests in communal, individual, and virtual ways. A guest can choose to visit the sky lounge Fitness Studio, book a wellness guest room for private practice, or have access to a virtual community through a wall sized screen in their guest room. The future guest’s expectations won’t simply raise the bar for the hospitality industry to deliver upon, they’ll set a new standard of excellence to achieve altogether.

Using the future-fitness experience as our proof of concept allowed us to create a visual illustration of an actionable, replicable, and solution-based approach to designing for the future unknown. We strategically considered how this multi-layered experience could easily be repurposed across several service offerings, whether it be fitness, culinary, conference or entertainment.

A rooftop restaurant reinvents the dining experience, with additional VIP services that offer guests the rare chance to book a culinary guest room with chef-prepared/delivered meals, designed with a focus on a more personal, in-room dining experience. Curated events, programming and music take place in central courtyard spaces accommodating social distancing guidelines, with guests attending in person, from their terraces, or interacting from their rooms. By rethinking the hotel experience, customizing guest rooms, and offering in-room amenities and custom-curated experiences, travelers can enjoy the hotel on their terms.

Bergmeyer’s work for the “Hotel” category was selected by a panel of Hospitality industry media, brand and development leaders for inclusion in NEWH's special edition publication, Beyond: NEWH, Inc.