The Hotel Room of the Future

Hotel Room of the Future!

The hotel room of the future; what does it have and what does it do? In Germany they are actually researching this and putting together mock designs of what guests and hotel operators may want. The project manager Vanessa Borkmann says that the research has been going on for two years thus far, and the hotel of the future may have voice command, pressure sensitive floors, a bed that may rock you to sleep, sliding walls, ambiance lighting, infrared lighting etc. Many of these upgrades are very costly so it is not expected that we will see many of these changes any time soon. The hotel rooms may be mood and temperature sensitive, meaning that the “Sensifloor” may the one of the most interesting features in the hotel room of the future.

Some of the upscale hotels may start converting a floor or two to see if there is demand yet for a room of this type. It is not cost effective to do a complete renovation to this type of room because the technology is very expensive. So converting a few upper level rooms or a floor may increase revenues and attract those technology buffs.

Works Cited

Boulden, J. (2010, 08 09). Hotels future foretold? Retrieved 18 2011, 02, from www.cnn.com: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/08/10/boulden.hotel.future.cnn

Reflection

Being a technology buff, I am intrigued by the hotel room of the future.  Technology in hotels is finally starting to show up. I think the industry has fought the technological trends because of the cost to implement them. The industry cannot ignore these trends anymore. I feel that they need to spend the money to upgrade their hotel or the hotel will fail. That is why we are now seeing even low end budget hotels implement these technological upgrades such as advanced reservation systems, green programs, even wifi. I believe that some Budget Inns now offer wireless internet.

As far as some of the advances that this video showed I don’t know if I will be lining up to stay in a hotel designed like that. I know it is a mock design but I cannot and will not stay in a plain white walled hotel. I know that this is how everyone views the future in white but I need some color. The voice command system sounded a little creepy hopefully they will be able to make that sound a little more human.  Hopefully the bed doesn’t rock every time you lay in it. I look forward to seeing the hotel room develop for the future and look forward to working in the industry as these ideas become realty.