Boutique Hotels

One trend all the spotters are reporting on in the travel sector is ‘Boutique Hotels’. Small, often independently owned, offering personal service and high-end style. The web has allowed Boutique Hotels to both market themselves to a wider audience and allowed independent minded travellers to become far more selective about where the stay.

This trend in travel offers a far more unique experience. The new Soho Hotel in London is a 85 bedroom boutique hotel built from a parking lot with contemporary English décor, every room is different. The Murano Urban Resort in Paris has hot pink fur lined elevators and black lit hallways and uses fingerprint technology to access the rooms. In Ljubljana in Slovenia an army of artists including Anthony Gormley have created the spacious modern hotel, Celica, that still relects the original purpose of the building. Erm, a military prison in this case.

The Puerta America scheduled to reopen by the end of this year in Madrid is being developed with twelve designers have been given a floor each in which to express including Ron Arad, Norman Foster, John Pawson, Marc Newson and Zaha Hadid.

Small Business Trends who gives an indepth post on this trend reports on Zack Paul’s view of the trend. Zack, who is the General Manager of The Hibernation Station in Montana, says, "[Boutique Hotels] could be a mystical offering or just something romantic or representing the environment of the area in which they are located."

Boutique hotels do not necessarily need to be independent. Epoque Hotels operates over one hundred "eclectic and beautiful" hotels in 10 countries blending traditional values in hospitality with a contemporary approach and frame of mind. Each Epoque Hotel is an original expression of the city where it is located. Simon Woodroffe who introduced conveyor belt sushi to Britain in 1997 with his Yo Sushi restaurants will be launching a formula called Yotel that can be slotted into any building, since all the rooms are prefabricated units with windows facing on to a corridor in which lighting can represent anything from bright daylight to the crepuscular end of the day. The rooms will only be about 10 square metres) but "perfectly formed, likening them to yacht cabins."

Yes. We know. After reading this we all think, ‘Time to get away for a good old fashioned dirty weekend!’

The Soho Hotel
Murano Urban Resort
Celica
Epoque Hotels
Small Business Trends
The Hibernation Station
Guardian Newspaper Article