PROOF Consultancy’s recent work includes the creation of a wide variety of projects: from a bar so quietly exclusive that it’s where the young royals go when they don’t want to be seen, to a new European hotel brand with its original solution for the lone diner marooned in his hotel. David Morris, a director at PROOF, believes that the challenge for hotel designers is to balance customer expectation against a brand’s position, and to ensure it isn’t compromised or confused in a knee-jerk reaction to the year’s latest fad.
While the basics of a good hotel remain unchanging, it does seem that so much else has, or is, changing. This is driven by greater customer expectation of getting what they want, when they want it. We are in the time of the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ generations for whom technology, brands and aspirational experiences are a given. As a result, their expectation of a hotel differs from their ‘babyboomer’ parents – not that this generation should be written off; they are looking forward to at least another 20 years of spending the children’s inheritance on new experiences for themselves. Meanwhile, the high street shops, and perhaps the glut of makeover programmes, have transformed our interiors at home and thus our expectations of our hotel interiors.
Read the full article in our DesignLife Magazine page 58
