Hospitality

Check out our most popular content for the year on the Hospitality blog -- here is your recap of our top posts from Hamilton Beach Commercial®.  

Read on...and if you see content you like, be sure to join the HBC Community for regular updates, whether it's Beverage, Food, Hospitality or Recipes.

Hip London-based hostel brand Generator recently announced that it doesn’t want to be a hostel company anymore. “The moment we call ourselves ‘hostel,’ it limits us in certain markets,” Generator CEO Alastair Thomann said.

So is Generator a hotel company now? No. Instead, it will simply be called “Generator.” More than a hotel branding quirk, the change reflects the widespread convergence in the hospitality industry, Thomann said, in which hostels are becoming more like boutique hotels (aka poshtels) and boutique hotels are offering dorm-style accommodations. These experiments in community-driven, non-traditional hospitality also enable hotel companies to better compete with Airbnb and its cousins.

So, when is a hotel not a hotel? Let’s look at some ways hospitality companies are bending their brands.

“Alexa*, close the blinds.”

“Alexa, what time does the gym open?”

“Alexa, can I get some more towels?”

Soon, dialing "0" for the front desk will be an artifact of the past. The latest trend in hotel tech is artificial intelligence for guest rooms: conversational AI systems that can handle guests’ common questions and requests. This innovation is about to go mainstream, as Amazon’s Alexa for Hospitality is being tested at select Marriott, Westin, St. Regis,  Aloft, and Autograph Collection hotels (including the Charlotte Marriott City Center, the hotel innovation incubator we’ve featured.) How does this system work, and what are the benefits of adopting it?

Starbucks is getting rid of plastic straws. McDonald’s, too. But what about the hospitality industry?

Hotel chains, cruise lines and tour companies have lagged behind in efforts to eliminate plastic straws and other single-use plastics. But that’s changing, as major players like Marriott and Royal Caribbean are seeking out new ways to phase out these environmental hazards. Practically speaking, how difficult is it to make this change? And does it really make a difference?

The future looks rosy for the hospitality industry. Growth forecasts continue to be strong. Tourism numbers are booming worldwide. And as travel becomes easier, swifter and more reliant on technology, hotels are striving to keep pace.  

“What’s happened over the last three to five years, and what we expect over the next two or three, are unlike what we’ve seen in this industry before,” Heather Balsley, SVP of global marketing mainstream brands for InterContinental Hotels Group, said at the 2018 Hunter Hotels Conference. Here’s a look at some hospitality trends that promise to reshape the industry.

In some ways, travel has never been easier. You can breeze through expedited security. You can rapidly research every place you plan to visit. And you can use your phone as room key, translator and guide.

Yet travel has become even more stressful as people try to navigate a tumultuous and fast-changing globe. Skift calls this the State of Permanxiety: “a near-constant state of anxiety that exists now around the world.”  

Some hotels take a Zen approach to helping travelers relax: aromatherapy, guided meditations, even offering bags of lavender from a lobby cart at bedtime. These little touches are appreciated, but there are also some practical ways to relieve guests’ travel stress. 

What’s the one thing that can make or break guest satisfaction? It’s not the pillow menu or the fitness offerings; it’s the hotel breakfast.

Because the breakfast bar is often included in the room price, its quality factors heavily into guests’ assessment of value. Limp offerings of off-brand yogurt and underripe bananas dampen the guest experience; surprisingly good coffee and creative combinations elevate it.

How do the best hotel breakfast bars bring guests back again and again? Here are five fresh ideas.

Check out our most popular content for the year on the Hospitality blog -- here is your recap of our top posts from Hamilton Beach® Commercial.

Read on...and if you see content you like, be sure to join the HBC Community for regular updates, whether it's Beverage, Food, Hospitality or Recipes.

One of the biggest hospitality trends isn’t big at all: It’s the incredible shrinking guestroom. Five years ago, the standard room in a newly built business hotel was 350 square feet; now it’s 275. Boutique hotels that aim to attract millennials are reducing rooms even more. Vīb by Best Western has “comfortably chic” rooms measuring 200 square feet. At Tru by Hilton, they’re 225.

Smaller guestrooms are cheaper to build, easier to clean and have a better ROI per square foot. The trend fits changing guest expectations and a reimagination of hotel lobbies as places to socialize, work and play. But no guest wants to feel squished — so how can small rooms be designed to feel big?

The latest trends in guestrooms mostly involve taking things away.

Wall-to-wall carpet? Too hard to keep clean. Bathtubs are going bye-bye. Desks are getting ditched (although the outcry from business travelers may bring them back.) Even nightstand Bibles are getting harder to find.

But what about the hotel alarm clock? Some chains think it’s time to remove them from guest rooms too. Walt Disney World took the alarm clocks out of its hotel rooms in 2016, replacing them with power/USB charging hubs. Guests still want their clocks, however — they just want them to work a little better.