Hotel Design: The Need to Develop a Strategic Approach

Concerns design in the context of the hotel industry in general and, in particular, the way in which hotel design is currently used to meet business and customer objectives. Compares this current state and the potential role for design in these areas. Clarifies the concept of design and then proposes that design companies focusing on hotel design lag behind their counterparts in other media and contexts in their understanding of the target environment, their communications with the client and end user, and in terms of managing the design process as a totality. Part of the reason for this is the continuing belief, on the part of many hotel design agencies and hotel design buyers, that interior design is a superficial, rather than a strategic process. Discusses mechanisms by which a change towards the latter state might be achieved.