Concepting the hotel of tomorrow

The hotel industry has functioned with traditional operating models for years; product development has been cautious, and it has partially been based on production and cost savings principles. A hotel room has been a space not recognising of anything or anyone, never changing or adjusting itself. Over the past few years, due to customers’ experiences and changes in consumer habits, a need has emerged to rethink the basis of the traditional hotel.

At the same time, global megatrends, such as sustainable development, are gaining more ground also in the hotel business. The principles of sustainable development offer no longer a mere competitive edge. They represent a self-evident, default basis for building a customer-oriented but also nature-preserving, sustainable accommodation industry for future decades.

This constitutes the framework for the Finnish Hotel of Tomorrow. We are mainly concentrating on megatrends and changing customer needs in the framework of the Experience Society. We are creating two hotel room concepts, which are based, on one hand, on preserving the one and only globe we have and on helping the customer connect with nature and, on the other, on technological development and on faith in, and experience of, technology. Most importantly, though, we concentrate on the customer, who will be able to alter the room according to his or her personal tastes and wishes.

Björkqvist, A. (2009). Concepting the Hotel of Tomorrow. Helsinki: Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. URL: https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/96545/conceptingthehotel.pdf