ALL TOGETHER NOW – HIX EVENT CONVERSATION

Design Insider is delighted to be running a series of articles to promote conversations on the seminar topics that will be presented at the Hotel Interiors Experience – HIX – at the Business Design Centre, London on 18/19th November 2021. The topics will discuss six social shifts that are taking place in our post-pandemic world as all we all move towards opportunity, the light, somewhere better.

Find out more about HIX here

Following on from our first article Meaningful Value we take a look at second seminar in the series, sponsored by BCFA member LAUFEN entitled “ALL TOGETHER NOW” – Theme -2020; a place of solitude, introspection and often loneliness, incredible hotels represent communion, togetherness and shared experience. But has anything changed?

Joel Butler, a director of the HIX event, gave us his view.

“Loneliness and disconnection was a big topic way before Covid; From concerns over the immersive nature of tech and an entire generation being ‘all alone together’, to longer working hours and the loss of the community high street experience, our social interactions had been changing for a while.

Then lock-downs and social distancing made solitude our moral and legal responsibility. It was like this grotesque, dystopian exaggeration of the direction that we were all perhaps headed in the first place. So we really wanted to cover this topic at HIX because hospitality has always had that super power of bringing people together. We wanted to present The Student Hotel story because community, communication and optimism is what they’re all about, and it’s not such a bad time for a bit of optimism right now.”

In this HIX talk, Jason Steere, Managing director of Brand and Experience of The Student Hotel will be sharing his passion for hospitality and design for unique tools for forging togetherness.

Entrepreneurial brand builder and all-round creative thinker, Jason Steere is the mastermind behind The Student Hotel’s unique attitude, award-winning interiors and out-of-the-box customer experience. We thought as The Student Hotel Group is not yet in the UK, but with one just having been announced for Merchant City in Glasgow, we would find out a little more of their exciting European concept.

The Student Hotel concept started with one simple observation: that students deserve better. Today, that vision has become reality and grown to encompass all guests with a “student spirit”.

From design-savvy travelers to next-gen entrepreneurs, TSH welcomes thousands of guests annually to its expanding portfolio of urban campus-style properties across Europe.

Purpose-built or housed in historic converted buildings, TSH’s industry-leading concept provides blended spaces to learn, stay, work and play for a night, a week, a month or a year. The Student Hotel brings together student accommodation, hotel rooms, co-working, meetings and events in a new and inspiring hospitality concept.

TSH guests, businesses and local communities embrace its positive impact-driven programming and inclusive culture. Founded in 2012, TSH is headquartered in Amsterdam and employs 450. All TSH properties offer a mixed-use campus with accommodation, bars, restaurants, gyms, retail shops, meeting and event spaces and high-profile, co-working space.

With over 11,000 rooms in Europe open and under development, TSH aims to offer a unique experience to its community of international guests.

As of today, TSH is operating in 15 European locations: two hotels in Amsterdam and in Barcelona and one in Berlin, The Hague, Delft, Vienna, Groningen, Eindhoven, Maastricht, Rotterdam, Paris, Florence and Bologna.

We also took the opportunity to talk with seminar supporting partner LAUFEN, and asked “Have the ways in which hotels create experiences changed following the pandemic?

Lee Breeds, Global Projects Corporate Manager, ROCA Group commented: “Creating an experience for the present-day, mindful guest is about understanding and facilitating the needs of the guest in order that their experience is optimised for the level of togetherness which they feel comfortable with. Visitors who travel, whether for business or leisure, should be greeted with a multi- sensory experience which can envelop their entire room with a personalised, unique experience. After potentially stressful travel experiences, the hotel room, now more than ever, should reward the guests with a personalised, holistic experience through lighting, bathroom products and sounds, for example.”