Redesigning Hotel Rooms

The recession has had some impact in the leisure and travel aspects of hotels. This has lower the hotels' income, which has prevented several hotels from coming up with new design projects. There are, however, some hotels that seem to be doing well enough to invest in redesigning their rooms. One of them is Starwood Hotels and Resorts. It plans to redesign some of the guest rooms. Out of the 576 worldwide hotels, it only plans redesign 41 of them. The reason for this is because it takes a lot of money to redesign just one hotel. With the 41 hotel Starwood is estimating to spend over $100 million. Starwood is a big hotel chain, which is why it is able to afford the costs.

Franchised or managed hotels are not able to keep up with the new designs because the ones that pay for the designs are the owners and not the management companies. The lack of income means that this hotels have can't afford to change the look of the hotel. A study shows that hotel spending on new looks has gone down in the last couple of years. The lack of renovation has become apparent; it has come down to, “scuffed wall coverings in hallways to torn drapes and faded, worn and stained carpeting and upholstery.” Hotels that are able to work on making themselves look better have the advantage of being more appealing to guests.

Hotels that are being affected by the economy have to do something that will give them an advantage over the new and improved hotels. What these hotels can do is maybe lower the prices of the rooms or provide a service that will cost them very little, but will greatly satisfy the guests. The improvements of the hotels will be attractive to people, but it might also make the prices of the rooms go up in order to compensate for the expense of remodeling. This will then leave people with choosing to stay at a cheap, not so attractive hotel and room or to stay at a more expensive, but better looking hotel and room.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/business/12hotels.html?scp=1&sq=hotel%20industry&st=cse