Ron Swidler, senior vice president, Gettys Group, Chicago
by Mary Scoviak, Contributing Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 8/1/2007
 Ron Swidler, Senior Vice President, Gettys Group, Chicago |
Ron Swidler, senior vice president, Gettys Group, Chicago, previews the room of the future, what’s ahead for Macau’s casino hotels and new direction for condo-hotel design.
HOTELS: What do guests want, and how is that changing what's on your drawing board?
Swidler: Guests are going to create market segmentation in the future. As more amenities become common, guests looking for a luxury experience are going to demand even more, forcing hotels and resorts to provide ever more refined products and services.
The hotel of the future will focus more on shared spaces than on individual experiences. Today's lobby acts as a thoroughfare where people pass through on their way to other places. Tomorrow's lobby is a destination. It creates shared spaces-wide open, flexible, social spaces that allow for more informal meeting space. We easily can imagine business meetings taking place in hotel lobbies.
Restaurants face different challenges. In terms of design, not much is expected to change. But, restaurants will incorporate green methods by using locally sourced and organic foods. They'll weigh the cost of shipping food from afar when local options are available. Smaller portions of high-quality dishes will be the norm. We see a renewed dedication to finding green, sustainable solutions.
HOTELS: Will going green mean higher budgets-and, therefore, less buy-in from owners?
Swidler: Right now, it's expensive to be green. We had a recent project that cost more because it was LEED gold-certified. It really depends on the project. We certainly advocate some of these systems.
We have to rethink the model of how people pay for hotels. There can be a consumption model, where the rate is set in advance. It could go up or down, based on consumption. Perhaps there is a credit applied when a guest brings his or her own soap or towels. If you don't get your linens washed daily, you pay less. You pay less for smaller amounts of water consumption or if you drain the power supply less than a set amount. Maybe you give back energy via a solar power collection backpack, or maybe you volunteer to beautify a resort during your stay. There can be extra charges for higher amounts of waste. In this way, hotels would be able to lower their operating costs and increase their profits, and guests can contribute to a sustainable process.
In terms of design, we need to create incentives for designers to incorporate green elements into their creations. The only incentives at this point are the 'feel good' factor and the good public relations that follow for being LEED-certified.
The question is how do we create incentives to be green? Maybe it is tax based via a tax break. It may be possible to charge guests a 'resort' tax, which could go to building local convention centers or contributing to the greening of hotels. Similar changes are common today-from those covering to tips to adding premium coffee in the guestroom.
HOTELS: What new materials will we see and how will they expand your design options?
Swidler: We're starting to see things such as nano-coding. Stronger and lighter materials such as bamboo are becoming commonplace. Solar collectors on roofs are lowering costs. Advances in water collection and purification are creating more sustainable options. Hotels emit fewer CFCs and employ new devices that use less energy. One example is a bathroom exhaust fan that acts on motion. Motion sensors turn it on. When it no longer detects motion, it turns off automatically. Yes, these features certainly add to the price of a project. Some people want them, and more will once the prices begin to fall.
We use a lot of cool new materials-a lot of recycled plastics, recycled cotton, recycled blue jeans. We have a project now that is using flooring made of recycled light bulbs. Design isn't limited by going 'green.' We're getting to the point where we're able to build the same things with new materials that we would have with traditional materials.
HOTELS: Gettys Group recently was awarded the contract for the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Macau, which will be opening late next year. What new ideas will that bring to gaming design?
Swidler: A vast majority of the hotels in Macau have a gaming component to them, but the ones that do not could still cater their operations and design to an overflow market. It is likely a gaming patron will stay at a hotel that is not necessarily his or her favorite gaming site, but located near it. Many differences will come from a concentration on alternative revenue streams food and beverage (F&B), convention, retail, or specific marketing niches, like a hotel that is designed to offer a respite from the frenetic pace of gaming.
The design/planning of a non-gaming hotel requires a different focus for user circulation/occupation. Operationally, you are no longer trying to guide people into the gaming areas for the purposes of generating revenue there; you have to find and exploit alternative means of revenue (F&B, retail, convention, etc). In terms of design elements, you are taking those alternative means of revenue and articulating them as primary pieces rather than secondary to the gaming energy. It is important that we, as designers, found alternative means of revenue for the Hard Rock Macau.
The Hard Rock Macau is a careful blending of a western iconographic brand with a specific user group and cultural philosophy. The experiential differences between larger hotel brands in the United States and a gaming hotel complex in Macau have proven to be vast, and cross-pollinating those was one of the challenges Gettys faced when beginning this project. Equal respect has to be given to both the brand and the culture in which that brand will be introduced.
HOTELS: How will all of this impact identity-building elements from uniforms to signage?
Swidler: Uniforms will be signage. We already have the technology that integrates illumination into clothing using fiber optics. We might see uniforms that act as message boards and illumination. That could change to reflect the time of day-more subdued during the day and brighter at night. Fabrics can become flexible displays.
HOTELS: Gettys Group is working on Orlando's Blue Rose, which will be the tallest condo-hotel to date. What will this project signal for the next wave of hotels with ownership components?
Swidler: There is always interest in creating the latest, greatest, more innovative spaces to keep up with our ever-evolving world and inventions. We have a lot of experience with trend watching and innovation through the Hotel of Tomorrow project we developed with Hospitality Design Group. Designing with the foresight to anticipate the trends of three to five years from now, when the building is complete, is important. We're infusing timeless design with creative use of color and materials appropriate to the Florida market.
Blue Rose will be differentiated from the abundance of themed, family and corporate traveler hotels in the Orlando market by exposing the local market to a new level of style and design-a New York meets Las Vegas aesthetic that fuses energy with sophistication. Our theme is to implement a sophisticated neutral palette that enables the client to create his/her own interpretation of the space.
HOTELS: Is it possible to push the envelope too far?
Swidler: Definitely. The risk comes when you design too far off center. Refrain from being too theme-y. It's possible to be so far out there that you isolate a large group of guests. Cutting edge is fine, but new design could be so daring and aimed at such narrow demographics that is. Undercut by negative feedback from larger guest populations.
The hotels of the future are going to be the ones that give guests a unique experience but do not isolate them or make them feel uncomfortable.
