May 24, 2024 // How Hotel Amenities Could Change the World
At Amansara in Cambodia, a resident guide and expert in regional wildlife, medicinal herbs, and forest fruits leads guests through a network of hidden trails in Angkor Wat. Image courtesy of Conde Nast Traveler.
Let’s talk about how hotel amenities could change the world.
Free breakfast, cool gym, luxury spa — these amenities have become meh very quickly. A New York Times piece this week explores how guests are aggressively raising their expectations for what their hotels should offer them. From chartered helicopter rides in Vancouver Island, to glam photoshoots in New York, to “forest therapists” who hike with you in Kennebunkport, visitors want to have visceral, bespoke experiences that none of their friends have had.
But it goes deeper than that. This type of traveler is also looking to break out of the “tourist bubble,” to find the unexpected local encounters that make travel so rewarding. As Laura Arciniegas, a sociologist in Barcelona, Spain put it, “tourism has become the sort of activity where you don’t touch the reality of the people living in that place. There are many ways and many reasons for visitors to pass over the made-for-tourists experiences to find the world ‘of the other person.” New platforms like EatWith and WithLocals embody this idea.
Can hotels find a way to channel this thirst for new experiences into a deeper understanding of local culture? A way to break down barriers between tourists and the values of land they are venturing into? We’d love to hear from anyone pushing forward this idea or who has recently experienced a great example of this. Any killer responses will be featured in the next newsletter!
In last week’s newsletter, we asked how you would like to see public spaces improve for children?
“More streets designed as public spaces where kids can play as they go about their day. In Gehl public life studies from around the world, children 15 and under are underrepresented on city streets, making up less than 6% of moving and staying activity, even though they often comprise close to 20% of a city’s population. Neighborhood streets play a key role in closing the gap in access to child friendly places and health outcomes. Local communities should be involved in how this is done in a contextual and locally relevant way. Overall, design interventions that devote more space to people and less to cars, calm vehicle speeds, encourage mixed-use development, and promote play along the way can help. If we want to, we can make streets more inviting and accessible to kids and their grown-ups!”
— Julia D Day, Partner and Team Director at Gehl
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MUST-READS
‘Quarters,’ a gallery, wine bar, and boutique open inside a Tribeca loft // Wallpaper
Meet the world’s most environmentally conscious chair // FastCompany
Easy-to-Assemble Frank Lloyd Wright Homes Are Here—Sort Of // Surface Magazine
St. Louis Fills a Downtown Void With Soccer // Blooomberg CityLab
Are Airbnbs Cheaper Than Hotels? What the Numbers Show // Skift
Linear park alleviates social and environmental ills // CNU
Google’s Ivy Ross Makes Sense of Color // Metropolis
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IDEA SPOTLIGHT
Unzoomed
Being billed as the “Wordle for urban design nerds,” Unzoomed gives you six tries to guess what city you’re looking at from a bird’s eye view. It’s harder (and more fun) than you’d think. Give it a try!
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