New York - About an hour or so north of New York is the unremarkable town of Stamford, Connecticut. And in an unremarkable industrial estate is One StarPoint: a smart, but unremarkable corporate building. There are few clues that it is the HQ of the Starwood hotel group, and inside, a division of customer-obsessed designers, planners and consultants are feverishly working on the future of the hotel room.
The Starwood group includes the St Regis, W, Westin, Le Méridien, Sheraton, Tribute Portfolio and The Luxury Collection brands, but I’m here to have the curtain pulled back on the company’s vision for the future of its Aloft, Element and Four Points brands, including three complete concept rooms set up as working test beds for the technology the company hopes to roll out over the next few years.
The introduction, given by global brand leader Brian McGuinness, is littered with buzz phrases presumably plucked from intense, blue-sky sessions. These including “access is the new excess”, “looking at the psychographic rather than the demographic”, and “alone, but not lonely”. Bed wars are discussed in hushed tones of seriousness.
But it’s the approach to concept rooms, treating them, as McGuinness suggests, “like Detroit treats concept cars,” which is novel and interesting.
Just down the corridor are three complete, technology-stuffed rooms created to allow in-house designers to experiment, innovate and test to destruction. And all this without taking expensive, rent-paying rooms out of commission.
But first, I’m ushered on to the warm seat of an exercise bike, with an Oculus Rift strapped to my head. This is the virtual-reality headset bought last year by Facebook for $2-billion (R25bn), and something Starwood aims to roll out to its Element gyms. The idea is that, rather than sweat your way through a workout in a joyless hotel gym, you can select picturesque cycle routes from around the world. It’s both novel and pleasing.
The VR tech doesn’t end there. Starwood hopes to offer music concerts, captured on stage in “360 degree-o-vision”, which visitors will watch as if they were there. The Aloft hotel, for instance, has planned and impromptu gigs in their lobbies as artists – knowing the company’s predilection for live music – will often bowl up after a gig for a post-show jam in the bar. The idea is that these can then be streamed to guests via Oculus.
Next, I’m introduced to Botlr – an autonomous robot butler already in service at the Aloft Cupertino and Silicon Valley. It’s no surprise that the home town of Apple would be first to get this self-piloting room service drone, who arrives at guests’ doors, its flip-top head stuffed with whatever consumable – toothbrush, toothpaste, slippers – they’ve forgotten and phoned or WhatsApped housekeeping for. After I grab my stuff from its brain box, it lets out an anthropomorphic whistle as it trundles off down the corridor, awaiting its tip – a complimentary tweet.
The first concept room is Four Points – branded, a consumer-technology fest that packs his ’n’ hers televisions, wireless headphones and a smart mirror. Developed in conjunction with Panasonic Connected Solutions, it’s a touch-screen display, showing local weather, news and sports scores, stories about which can be pulled down to read in full. There are plans afoot to allow this to sync with your smartphone to deliver your schedule, messages and e-mails, to read while you’re brushing your teeth in your socks.
Even the mirrors are considered, with touch pads whacking the brightness to “white dwarf” for, say, putting on make-up, and taking it down for ambient light. A lack of input will result in the light shutting itself down, to save precious energy.
Finally, let’s talk about carpets. Radio-frequency identification tags in the corridors’ deep pile will track you via your smartphone, directing your way to your room via subtle lighting. That room service tray you just hoovered up? Lie it outside your room and the carpet will message housekeeping to pick it up.
And during the night, a loo visit will be expedited by sensors under the carpet that sense your weight arriving off the bed and illuminate accent lighting in the convenience to ease your travel to the throne as your circadian rhythms announce that you need a 4am comfort break.
There’s definitely a lot going on, but the message rammed home is that the customer, and their personal comfort, is at the core of all this head-scratching, and technology is giving Starwood the tools to facilitate this, while personalising the hotel experience as never before. The future of hotel rooms is coming and it’s connected. Even to the carpets…
The Independent