In the late 1930’s a wealthy hotel guest could board Henry Flagler’s No.91 private railcar on a stylish platform on Track 61 in the basement of the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, and ride in elegant splendor non-stop directly to a special platform at Flagler’s The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach for an exquisite guest arrival experience.
The arrival experience is a guest’s first interaction with the hotel’s architecture, its ambience and its staff and sets up expectations for the remainder of their stay. The quality of the arrival experience can create a lasting first impression that influences a guest’s perception of the essential quality level of the hospitality offering. A positive arrival experience increases the likelihood of guest satisfaction that leads to good reviews, favorable recommendations and return bookings. Conversely, a poor arrival experience may sour a guest’s perception from the start.
Great Expectations
Designing for the guest arrival requires knowing what the guests expect. Guest expectations will vary according to the type of lodging and the purpose of the booking. Here are a few variations:
The Home Sweet Home Arrival: Some guests want to be made to feel at home and be treated with safe, cozy, comfortable hospitality. The arrival might be in a warm and welcoming setting with comfy furniture, soft lighting, flowers and a fireplace.
The Queen for a Day Arrival: Some guests expect to be treated as VIPs, or even royalty, and want an elegant arrival experience in a luxurious, opulently appointed setting and to be fussed over by well-mannered, attentive staff.
Uber–Cool Arrival: Guests arriving at a boutique or lifestyle hotel want to feel that they have entered an exclusive club of fashionable people who are in-the-know and cultivate unique artistic values. Often the setting will be in a hyper-modern lobby with avant-garde furniture, dramatic mood lighting, high-fashion uniforms, and experimental music.
The Thrill-Seeker Arrival: The thrill-seeking guest will expect a super wow-factor presentation when arriving. They want a stunning architectural experience that is a prelude to an adventurous escape. Gaylord Hotels and many Vegas hotels do not usually disappoint these guests.
The Zipless Arrival: Many guests simply don’t care about the arrival setting and just want to get to their room quickly without fanfare. These guests often bypass the front desk and check in on their phone app, oblivious to design features of the lobby. They expect efficiency and good wayfinding. The Hybrid Arrival: Some guests expect combination of some or all of these qualities, e.g., they could expect a warm and inviting, elegantly designed yet stunning and exhilarating yet chic setting, but very efficiently laid out and operated, allowing guests to arrive and reach their rooms seamlessly at their own pace.
Components of Arrival
Vehicular Arrival
Most guests arrive at their hotel entrance by private car, taxi or limo. For an urban hotel this might only be a drop-off lane or if space permits a short driveway protected by an overhanging canopy. On a larger site there could be room for an arrival court with ornamental landscaping, a fountain and a large porte-cochere. An even larger site for an upscale hotel or resort might feature a lavish landscaped entrance drive where the beautiful hotel architecture is framed and carefully unveiled as the vehicle approaches.
Upon arrival, if by private car, the first staff member who greets the guest is typically a valet who takes the car to parking or directs the guest to a self-park location. At the same time a bell desk staff member offers to assist with unloading luggage and transporting it to the front desk. The guest may be greeted again by a doorman upon entering the lobby. The process is slightly abbreviated if the guest arrives by taxi or limo. There are many variations for this process, but the protocol is usually similar. Tour bus, cruise ship and other group arrivals require a different set of procedures and consequently result in a different arrival experience for guests.
This entrance sequence is the first arrival experience for the guest and consequently frames the guest ‘s very first impression of the lodging experience. The design of the arrival court and its efficient function along with the cordiality of the staff is therefore of utmost importance in welcoming the guests and impressing them with positive expectations for their upcoming stay.
Lobby
Upon passing through the entrance of the hotel, the guest is presented with an important vista, i.e., the hotel lobby with its spatial composition and adjacencies. As we described above, for certain guests this needs to be subdued, warm, comfortable and welcoming, perhaps filled with comfortable looking seating, a fireplace and mood lighting. For others, a dramatic architectural space is called for with soaring ceilings, lavish chandeliers, a grand ornamental stair and huge windows facing the ocean or mountains. Spaces adjacent to the lobby such as the bar, restaurant, lobby lounges, retail and meeting space foyer need to be carefully considered during design as this will impact the guest’s orientation to the hotel’s features.
Front Desk
With some brands, the front desk in hotels has gone through a transition from a large heavy stone or wooden counter with a stunning backdrop of artwork, tapestry or sculptural relief, to a set of smaller kiosks or seated positions at a desk for a more personal registration. Some hotels may only have a concierge desk since the guest has already checked in on their smartphone and will check out with the same. However, many guests prefer the original arrangement since it gives a sense that someone is behind the front desk with authority and available to serve up gracious hospitality. Many luxury hotels have a VIP registration lobby where elite guests and celebrities are greeted privately and then securely escorted to their luxury suites. These may take the form of an elegant seating arrangement where the guests are served champagne while their registration is processed and a folio of their activities is presented.
Circulation to the Guestroom
From the front desk the guest then should easily find or be accompanied to the elevator lobby designated for their floor. This should be in view of the front desk for security so those entering the private realm of the hotel can be monitored to prevent intruders.
The destination direct elevator is a relatively new innovation, where the guest chooses the desired floor on a keypad before entering the elevator. While this may confuse some guests (there are no floor buttons in the elevator), this system is ultimately more efficient and provides a speeder trip to the guest’s assigned floor. Hotels sometimes have staff available to explain the operation to novice users.
The guest floor corridor may have many forms. Most typical is the double-loaded corridor with room doors flanking each side. A single- loaded corridor may have windows on one side offering daylight and views along the route. In an atrium hotel, a single-loaded corridor normally traces along the side of a dramatic multilevel skylit volume.
Rules of thumb for guest floor corridors:
• For luxury hotels the number of guestrooms per floor is an important consideration. Ideally there will be 8 or fewer guestrooms or suites per floor so a sense of exclusivity is promoted. Sharing a floor with 20 to 30 other guestrooms does not connote luxury.
• A long, bowling alley-like corridor should be avoided as feeling too institutional, but if it cannot be avoided, it should be punctuated with recesses, carpet patterns, and lighting to break up the monotony.
• Curved corridors tend to be disorienting and stressful for guests since they are constantly rounding the corner.
• Guestrooms too close to the elevators and ice machines are to be avoided due to acoustics and lack of privacy.
• Windows with views at the elevator landing and at the ends of corridors are desirable. Some seating near the landing has value but avoid creating a mini-lobby on each floor. They typically go unused and waste real estate.
Examples
The New York Four Seasons
This five-star urban hotel was designed by I.M. Pei and Frank Williams with a strong emphasis on the guest arrival experience. Guests are greeted at the entrance beneath a Hector Guimard inspired canopy that adorns a massive limestone street fronted facade. Luggage is immediately taken and brought to a special service elevator at the entrance where it is brought to a lower back-of-house level, tagged and transported to the guestroom before the guest finishes checking in. Upon entering, guests are presented with a soaring marble clad colonnaded rotunda with a backlit onyx ceiling and flanked on each side by tiered seating levels. The rise to the front desk is subtle as the guests find themselves on the second level overlooking the rotunda floor.
The architects were careful to locate the cashier’s desk away from registration so that the occasional tense transaction from a departing guest is shielded from those arriving. While registering, guests have a view of a large rose window at the entrance to the 5- Diamond specialty restaurant and bar. After registration, guests are whisked by high-speed elevators up the tower to their floor with compact, elegant hallways that they share with only 3 to 7 other guestrooms. Passing through their polished Anegre-veneered door, their wide sumptuous room unfolds to an exciting city view and serves as the conclusion of a carefully choreographed guest arrival experience.
Hotel Daneli, Venice
In true Venetian style, guests may arrive to the Hotel Danieli from a private boat or gondola by way of the Grand Canal and Venetian Lagoon. Once inside, an understated carved wood registration desk sits at the base of a magnificent grand stair that climbs an ornate 3-story skylit atrium with intricate wood carvings and lush landings on each floor overlooking the 15th century colonnaded stairwell leading to the guestrooms. A lavish hotel lobby and bar sits adjacent to the atrium with Gothic arched stone framed windows, hand- carved pink marble pillars, gold-leafed ceilings and Murano glass chandeliers.
The Hyatt Atlanta
The Hyatt is the first of several atrium hotels designed by John Portman. Portman presented a perceptual ploy to arriving guests at the entrance where guests are guided through a low, dimly lit, heavy concrete tunnel that presses them down spatially before, at the end, the guest breaks out to an explosion of space as they enter the giant soaring atrium. After the astonished guests pass through the massive sky-lit volume they are pressed back down to the registration area, but then are rocketed in a glass tubular elevator on an
exhilarating ride up the atrium wall to their room floor balcony. They then trail along the edge of the dramatic atrium marveling at its splendor and pageantry before being gently pressed back down to their low-ceilinged guestroom.
Wyndham Samana, Dominican Republic
Guests arrive beneath a broad wood framed porte-cochere that is the extension of a soaring wood and bamboo trussed grand lobby, open on both ends. On axis with the lobby structure are two long swimming pools fronted by a sun-drenched terrace flanked on one side by a large covered open-air restaurant and the other by a tropical landscaped lawn in front of a three-story guestroom wing with balconies. The pools are flanked by large wood and white canvas cabanas with comfortable upholstered seating.
The view from the lobby frames a lush cluster of palm trees beyond the pools that lead to the beach and the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean beyond. Simple reception desks sit within the lobby where guests are offered margaritas or lemonade and white uniformed bell staff to escort guests to their rooms. The guest arrival experience is distinctly tropical and sets up an exotic and relaxing beach vacation.
The Mu Fend Yue Hot Springs Hotel, Fengxi New City, China Upon arrival at this compact six suite luxury boutique hotel, guests must find their way around a vertical earth-toned, timber-textured concrete slab to a discrete entrance doorway. Initial arrival is understated and minimal but unfolds past the reception past Zen-view portals, to a sequence of visual experiences around serene, sloped water features, a floating orange-glass pavilion and sunken courtyards that ignite the guests’ curiosity to explore more subtly exciting vistas offered around each corner. The arrival experience befits an ethereal hospitality experience that harmoniously fuses city life with nature.
Novel Arrivals
21c Museum Hotel, Louisville
As guests approach the front desk of the 21c Hotel, they pause as they see a life-size video projection on the floor of an unmade bed with a sleeping couple. They see that the overhead view of the bed video is active when one of its sleeping occupants shifts position. The front desk attendant motions the guests to come forward so they gingerly step onto the bed feeling strangely like they are violating the couple’s privacy. Many guests try not to step on the sleepers while they check in. Some even instinctively apologize to them. Many more such artistic surprises await the arriving guests.
Hemmingway Hotels
Hospitality developer, Matthew Weld, licensed the name from the Ernest Hemmingway family for a Hemmingway Hotels and Resorts brand. West Paces CEO Horst Schulze, HBA’s Michael Bedner and Lawrence Adams brainstormed to develop the concept where the style and ambiance of the brand would be infused with the lifestyle, literary works and character of Earnest Hemmingway. This led to the idea that arriving guests should check in at a gutsy bar styled as one of Hemmingway’s Key West haunts. Here the arrival experience would set up expectations for a literary adventure that would unfold throughout the hotel.
Burj al Aribe – Helicopter Arrival
Upon landing on the cantilevered helipad on the top floor of the dramatic 56-story mast-shaped structure that sits on a small artificial island off the coast of Dubai, arriving guests are met by a personal butler and escorted inside the luxurious hotel to elevators that transport them down an extravagantly ornate atrium to the arrival desk or, if the guest prefers, brought directly to their luxury suite.
Creating the Guest Arrival Experience With Al
Throughout history, a memorable arrival experience has long been the goal of hoteliers and architects as they have sought to affect the important impact of first impressions on their guests, both by delivering superbly courteous and welcoming service and by creating architectural settings that deliver spatial delight and joyful ambience.
As hoteliers and architects continue to embrace the importance of the guest arrival experience, they look to new and innovative tools to inspire their creation. For operations, Al provides hotels with customized algorithms to predict guests’ preferences, needs and desires which facilitates a smooth uncomplicated arrival. For architects and designers, Generative Al is a new tool that has the capacity to inspire and choreograph the guest journey with platforms like Midjourney, Krea.ai and Neural Frames.
As I wrote in my recent article for Hotel Business Review, Generative Al and Design Process for Hotels, architects are beginning to tailor the data sets that train GenAl algorithms in producing inspired outcomes with intentionally controlled results. Science is only scratching the surface of what GenA will eventually do for inspiring architectural design in choreographing amazing guest arrival experiences. “A stunning first impression was not the same thing as love at first sight. But surely it was an invitation to consider the matter“. – Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold, 2003.
This post originally appeared in Hotel Business Review on August, 25, 2024. It was written by Majestic Hospitality’s Lawrence Adams.
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