From small-town boutique inns to Marriott's global portfolio, hotels are getting Covid-spurred overhauls
August 30, 2021
Chicago Business Journal
By Ashley Fahey
During the hospitality industry's hardest-hit months last year, hotel owners and operators everywhere were scrambling to stay afloat. Even so, many saw an opportunity to take on capital projects within their hotels, to address changes either spurred or accelerated by the pandemic.
Some fast-tracked major capital improvement programs not due to take place for another couple of years. Others, seeing new focus around health, wellness and touchless design, went to work with architects and interior designers.
Much of it was clearly Covid-19-related — a ready supply of cleaning products, masks and hand sanitizer — while others, such as open-air common spaces, were cool to have in a pre-pandemic world but, overnight, became a new necessity.
"We couldn't draw fast enough," said Ryan Martin, vice president and director of hospitality design at the Dallas office of Omaha, Nebraska-based architecture firm Leo A Daly Co. "It was the first time in the history of the hospitality industry that everybody zeroed out their books."
Many hotels were also used as an unofficial quarantine or makeshift hospital facility, prompting necessary changes in guest rooms at those properties, Martin said.
Stephanie Linnartz, president of Marriott International Inc., said the company had, for many of its brands, been thinking pre-pandemic about how a hotel's common spaces could provide an ability to plug in and work in the lobby, or to take a private call in a phone booth.
The idea has long been to make the hotel lobby a lively, active space, she continued.
"I think the programming, the interior design, of our full-service hotels was headed that way already, and I think will continue to head that way in the future," Linnartz said.
The 1,004-room Los Angeles Airport Marriott hotel got a property-wide $50 million makeover. Pictured is the hotel lobby.
Especially if more people work from home in the future, Linnartz said they may want to get out of their house and go to a hotel lobby or other common area, creating a coworking-like atmosphere.
Several major hoteliers and well-capitalized owners were ready to deploy millions to bring their properties up to new Covid protocols — but even small, independently operated hotels have undergone tweaks and upgrades.
Adam Zembruski, founder and chief operating officer of Hospiamo LLC, represents several boutique-hotel ownership groups, including one that purchased a 75-room hotel in Galena, Illinois, an enclave a little more than two hours west of Chicago, in December. Despite having a population of less than 3,500, the town routinely sees more than 1 million visitors annually for antique shopping, skiing and golfing.
The Irish Cottage Inn and Suites in Galena was a difficult deal to get financed because of the pandemic's impact on the industry, Zembruski said. Since closing, the group has brought the hotel onto new marketing channels, added an events and banquet service to host "micro" weddings of fewer than 100 guests, and is spending about $400,000 to expand the onsite restaurant to an outdoor dining area.
In fact, outdoor space is cited among many working in the sector today as a critical investment in hotels today, new or old.
"I would never design a hotel today without giving them significant open space somewhere," said Stephen Overcash, principal of ODA Architecture in Charlotte, North Carolina, which does a lot of hospitality work. "I don’t care if it’s a small courtyard off the lobby, people love to be outside."
Technology investments are also becoming increasingly important. Many gadgets that first appeared at the onset of the pandemic, such as robots delivering room service and bacteria-killing wands, have since faded out of memory. Thicker air filters and germicidal ultraviolet lighting are the primary investments hotel owners are implementing to boost air quality, Overcash added.
Other tech investments focused on guest experience are gaining momentum.
The Horton Hotel and Rooftop Lounge in Boone, North Carolina, is within a 1920s-era building.
In Boone, North Carolina, a different ownership group that Zembruski works with purchased the 15-room Horton Hotel and Rooftop Lounge. There, they plan to expand a small retail kiosk into the hotel's lobby and instate a reservation system — akin to picking an aisle or window seat on an airplane — that'll allow customers to book a specific seat or table at the rooftop bar.
"I don’t think it’s Covid-inspired but Covid is involved in everything we do right now," Zembruski said. "We just have to think differently."
Linnartz said there's been a supercharging of features like mobile check-in and using smartphones as a hotel-room key since the pandemic. At Marriott-branded and other hotels, there's still the option of checking in at a front desk the traditional way.
Mobile guest services are an expansion of that, such as ordering room service or towels on a smartphone.
Martin said luxury resorts historically have services that require a lot of person-to-person interaction: valets, bellhops, concierges. Since the pandemic, there's been a shift to interacting with as few people as possible, even among some of the more exclusive hotel properties, with everything available via smartphone. Those protocols are also in place also for the safety of staff, Martin continued.
At one of Leo A. Daly's projects, the Aurora Anguilla Resort & Golf Club in Anguilla, golf carts with GPS technology are being considered — to not only get from one hole to another, but to travel around the 300-acre property, such as restaurants or beach access.
Linnartz said not only is Marriott investing in technology within its hotels but tech that can streamline and expand services. Marriott in April launched a new partnership with Uber Eats and, more recently, the option for guests to purchase travel insurance.
"I think we've been not only innovating around technology at the property level, but innovating around new offerings and technology," Linnartz said.