TRENDS | H.O.T. Project Macrotrends
Robotics
Experience Economy
Total Connectivity
Nanotechnology
World Flattening
Biotechnology
Creative Commerce
Modularity
Renewable Resources
Personalization
ROBOTICS
- Robotics is an essential part in manufacturing today and is rapidly gaining a presence in consumers' homes, cars, and lives; robotics can even be found in our bodies, with cochlear ear implants and high-tech prosthetic limbs ubiquitous in our society.
- Hotels could benefit from intelligent robots that clean/re-set rooms, and even act as a bellman, automated attendant, virtual concierge, and room service, revolutionizing staffing and operations.
- Robotics will begin to play a larger part in transforming the hotel industry from person-to-person service to human-to-computer interface, and eventually, to a consumer computer-to-hotel computer interface.
EXPERIENCE ECONOMY
- Hotels are beginning to reflect the insights of authors B. Joseph Pine III and James H. Gilmore offered in their 1999 book Experience Economy, which says the service industry must sell "mass customization" services to its clients allowing for guests to create their own experiences in an experiential environment.
- Consumer research shows travelers desire authentic experiences; future hotels will fully immerse guests in an environment, where they participate in a different lifestyle or a themed hotel to such an extreme degree that they feel a part of such an experience.
- Hotels will be co-branded with corporations, offering guests the opportunity to experience blended lifestyles ranging from health and fitness, to rock and roll, to adventure. Imagine a hotel based on a sneaker brand or off-road vehicle.
- Hotel rooms will integrate more and more flexibility as technology advances to allow for environment and element shifting. An interim step will likely require users/guests to input their preferences. Eventually, guest preferences will be automatically read and reflected in real and virtual experiences.
- Within the same hotel, there can be hundreds of potential destinations, each room independent of the next. The hotel can be a different experience for each visit and visitor.
TOTAL CONNECTIVITY
- Travelers are more connected - to the media, to work, and to each other - than at any other time in history; BlackBerrys, Bluetooth, and broadband keep us in touch with important aspects of our personal and professional lives; advances are making communication equipment less cumbersome, smaller, and more portable.
- Guests can look forward to computers that are nearly invisible and virtually everywhere; these computers will translate foreign languages, feed high-resolution, 3-D images into guests' eyes, and more.
- Technology is being developed today that translates foreign languages for a listener as it is being spoken; the hospitality industry will further develop it.
- Macrotrends will be connected to one another and consumers can use everyday objects, such as multi-purpose chairs, to conference with business associates, complete school lessons, and relax.
- Travelers will find themselves plugged in to culture and business, as distances are bridged like never before, creating new challenges for the hospitality industry, which must engage guests as it never has.
- Handheld Wi-Max devices - the next step in high-speed communications - allows guests to have one device that is used simultaneously as a hotel key and communication device.
NANOTECHNOLOGY
- Nanotechnology today is in its infancy. Working with immensely small structures, nanotechnology can create material that is five times stronger than steel and is incredibly light-weight.
- Nanotechnology will become ever more present and useful and provide unheard-of amenities to hotel guests; the Hotel of Tomorrow™ will be created with strong and flexible materials, yielding new architecture and building materials.
- Bathrooms will be constructed of nanomaterials, which repel bacteria and bed sheets will be made with nanofabric, both requiring little effort to clean and no need to replace, reducing maintenance costs.
- Combined with other macrotrends, nanotechnology has the potential to completely change the face of hospitality.
PERSONALIZATION
- Hotels are already using consumer databases to keep track of guest preferences, ranging from pillows, news, smoking preferences and more. So, what's next?
- Hotels will compete for guests by offering integrity, information privacy, and credibility as a service.
- As guests' preferences change throughout their stay - from business mode to relaxation or exercise - so too do the functions of the guest room. Guests of the future will stay in multi-functional, multi-experiential hotel rooms.
- Hotel rooms will integrate more and more flexibility as technology advances to allow for environment and element shifting. Guests will demand their preferences be met; their preferences will be recorded and hotels will provide tailored experiences.
- Guests might be able to change the environment of an entire room to fit their preferences; a simple click of a button might create an entirely personalized hotel experience.
- Hotels will exist to cater to each guest's individual tastes by using technology; each macrotrend plays into the theme of personalization, which very well may be the most important of them all.
WORLD FLATTENING
- The concept of world flattening is endorsed by author Thomas Friedman, who equates "flat" with "connected", and notes that technological advances and the lowering of trade and political barriers has created an international society that is always in contact.
- Today many transactions are routed around the world; this trend will continue to evolve, proving our world to flat and connected.
- Physical location will have little meaning, as business can be conducted from anywhere.
- International guests find themselves in comfort, as hotels have identified who they are and what their needs are, customizing menus, television programs, radio stations, newspapers, and more to guests' home country or preference.
BIOTECHNOLOGY
- Biotechnology today manipulates organisms to do practical things and provide useful products, such as engineered pharmaceuticals.
- New foods and organisms are created, expanding the available resources.
- The hospitality industry will be challenged by biotechnology that creates pills, which allow travelers to stay awake for 48 hours, changing the need for a traditional hotel. What happens when people need to sleep only every other day?
- Bioengineered materials made from corn starch, soy, and bamboo will become commonplace, reducing maintenance costs; shampoo bottles, coffee wrappers, and water bottles will be biodegradable.
- Current biotechnology efforts are raising awareness of issue that hotels are some of the biggest contributors to waste - environmental, energy, and more - in the world. It is as renowned designer and author William McDonough would call it, an industry that "takes, makes, and wastes."
CREATIVE COMMERCE
- Today "tryvertising", a term coined by Trendwatching.com, is coming of age; consumers are encouraged to try a product before purchasing it - the ultimate test drive.
- The hotel experience redefines the idea of pop-up retail, with hotel stores catering to its guests' preferences.
- Hotels will reinvent retail, offering guests the opportunity to purchase any item in their rooms, and advertisers will target guests as they shower, relax, check in, and check out, per a guest's request.
- The industry is confronted with technological leaps and restless guests who demand more unique offerings.
- Shoppers/hotel guests of the future will experience a holographic body scan of themselves, giving them the ability to view what they would look like wearing different brands of clothes.
- The industry is able to meet these demands by putting the guest in control and encouraging guests to create an experience that centers on their own preferences.
MODULARITY
- Modularity today means pieces of a whole can be interchanged without diminishing the overall quality.
- Imagine hotels that grow or shrink, depending on demand; it saves hotels valuable resources from having to maintain empty rooms.
- Pre-fabricated, modular hotels will be embedded in jungles and oceans, as temporary domiciles in areas where labor and construction materials are scarce; hotels will pop up and leave, depending on in-season demand.
- The future of modularity allows for the complete open source design of buildings and communities, creating a wiki-hotel, where consumers have input in the designs, similar to a New York City park, co-designed by citizens.
- The idea of modularity plays into another important theme: Environmental sustainability.
- Modularity and nanotechnology will make construction conditions and materials used in fabrication more green.
RENEWABLE RESOURCES
- Sustainable design is on the rise. It is the art of designing physical objects to comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability; it plays into the functionality of tomorrow's hotels.
- Natural resources today are at risk, due to overuse from humans; the hospitality industry has statistically proven to be one of the biggest abusers of natural resources. Tomorrow's hotel will use fewer natural resources and more renewable resources, helping sustain the environment and contributing to a growing "green" economy.
- However, people are fighting to create awareness of the issue and extolling the virtues of alternative energy sources.
- Groups of "green" consumers are being developed; they look for opportunities to preserve the environment in their consumer habits, such as purchasing hybrid cars or choosing paper over plastic at the grocery store.
- Green companies will use alternative fuel sources - becoming more and more competitive with fossil fuels today - and spend comparable amounts of money as they would using the wasteful alternatives.
- Consumer research shows that guests will continue to consider a hotel's environmental policy when choosing a hotel.