Tag: luxury
Hotel Giants Are Targeting Tech-Savvy Millennial Travelers

Hotel Giants Are Targeting Tech-Savvy Millennial Travelers

By Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

At the latest breed of hotel, rooms are up to one-third smaller than traditional quarters, with furniture that looks fresh from an Ikea showroom.

The work desk is downsized and might double as a nightstand. The Internet speed is super fast. The Wi-Fi is free. Power outlets and USB ports dot the walls, especially near the bed to accommodate binge watching.

The target is the millennial traveler, ages 18 to 34, who likes to stay connected online, eat on the run, and commune with other millennials.

Hotel giants, including Marriott International and Hilton Worldwide, are launching brands with names such as Moxy, AC, Edition, CitizenM, and Canopy. Even billionaire Sir Richard Branson has a new millennial-oriented chain, dubbed Virgin Hotels.

For good reason: Millennials number more than 75 million in the U.S., and this year the Census Bureau projects they will surpass baby boomers as the nation’s largest generation.

Plus, they have money to blow. U.S. millennials plan to spend about $226 billion this year on travel, according to a Harris Poll survey.

“I think it’s definitely a smart move,” said hotel consultant Alan Reay of Atlas Hospitality Group in Costa Mesa, California “It’s a huge market.”

Creating a millennial hotel means tossing out some traditional features, such as the talkative concierge or soothing fountain.

Full-service restaurants are usually nixed in favor of healthy food-to-go choices in the lobby.

Business centers are swapped out for spacious gathering areas with communal tables, couches, and comfy chairs — sort of a hipper version of the parental home that millennials might still be inhabiting.

The front desk check-in might be replaced by a kiosk transaction, as at the podlike Yotel inn near New York’s Times Square or Starwood Hotels’ Aloft chain, which is slated to open a location in August near Los Angeles International Airport.

“I don’t spend lots of time in my room,” said Erin Schrode, 23, co-founder of a nonprofit environmental education program in Sausalito, California “If the room is small and the lobby is comfortable and there are niches and corners to work in, I’m great. We are a communal people.”

What the hotels lose in luxury they make up for with technology, including keyless room entry for some hotels and smartphone apps that let guests adjust the room temperature or make restaurant reservations without talking to a human.

At the Aloft hotel in Cupertino, California, not far from Apple’s headquarters, a three-foot-tall robot delivers snacks or other small items to guest rooms. The Apple Watch will be able to handle check-in at certain Aloft hotels.

The Yotel New York employs a one-armed robot to ferry luggage into storage lockers, all behind glass. At the nearby CitizenM hotel, each room comes equipped with a Samsung tablet to control lighting, curtains, and other features.

“The new traveling generation has a different DNA than their parents and grandparents,” said Harry Wheeler, a principal at hotel design firm Group One Partners.

Daria Taylor, 26, welcomes the new hotel style. Taylor said she travels regularly for her job as co-founder of a London-based digital entertainment and youth insights agency.

“I think hotels are very slow at adapting to change,” she said. “Many have outdated designs, stuffy communal areas and don’t have basic things like Wi-Fi or automated check-in systems.”

For Katelyn O’Shaughnessy, 28, convenience is a top priority.

“I don’t want to stand in line to check in,” said the founder of a Los Angeles travel start-up who is on the road at least twice a month. “I would rather have mobile check-in so I can get right to my room.”

As for room size, she quipped: “You can put me in a closet; as long as there is Wi-Fi, I’ll be happy.”

Millennials say they don’t want to spend on frills but insist on modern amenities and a location within walking distance of bars, restaurants, and other nightlife.

The rates for millennial-oriented hotels typically range from $150 to $200 a night, less than full-service hotels but not as cheap as economy hotels, consultant Reay said.

The minimalist CitizenM boasts on its website that “we sold the hotel cliches and used the money to make your stay cheaper,” with rooms starting at $199 a night.

The 230-room hotel, which opened last year, also houses a 24-hour cafeteria, as well as a full-service coffee and cocktail bar.

Marriott International is launching three hotel brands for millennials in the U.S.

Moxy is Marriott’s mid-price boutique hotel that is set to open in eight locations in the U.S., including New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and New Orleans, starting as early as next year.

AC is Marriott’s European-style brand that has opened U.S. hotels in New Orleans and Kansas City, Mo., with a third slated to open in Washington, D.C., next month.

Edition is Marriott’s high-end brand that opened its first U.S. hotel in Miami Beach last year, with another scheduled to open in New York this year.

“They center around social media and technology with an emphasis on style and design,” said Tina Edmundson, Marriott’s global officer for luxury and lifestyle brands.

Montage Hotels & Resorts, based in Laguna Beach, California, plans to open its own millennial hotel, called Pendry, in San Diego next year. The company describes the new brand as “London hip, New York paced, and California healthy.”

Billionaire entrepreneur Branson launched Virgin Hotels last year in Chicago. He has announced plans to open a Virgin Hotel in New York next year, with others under consideration in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and several other cities.

The Virgin Hotel in Chicago features rooms with sliding doors that separate the bedroom from the bathroom, hallway, and closet. The rooms have mini fridges stocked with snacks at street prices, free high-speed Wi-Fi, and a Bluetooth sound system.

Even budget hotel chains are targeting millennials.

Red Roof Inn estimates that about 12 percent of its guests are millennials, up from 9.5 percent in 2010.

To draw more young travelers, Red Roof President Andrew Alexander said, his company is testing outdoor gathering spots with fire pits and picnic areas at hotels in Ohio, Michigan, and Florida.

“We want our overall occupancy to outpace our competitors,” he said, “and the millennials will be a big part of that.”

Photo: Frank Tasche via Flickr

Grading The World’s First ‘Smartship,’ Quantum Of The Seas

Grading The World’s First ‘Smartship,’ Quantum Of The Seas

By Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

ABOARD THE QUANTUM OF THE SEAS — It was Friday, February 13, a 15-degree winter morning. But that did nothing to discourage the thousands of travelers who turned up to seek happiness alongside the ice-slicked docks in Bayonne, N.J.

The attraction? Quantum of the Seas, which is not a James Bond sequel but a one billion dollar Royal Caribbean cruise ship. It launched in late 2014 and will soon head to China. Some people think it’s the future of cruising. Others aren’t so sure.

But plenty are curious. By 3:45 p.m., we passengers — about 4,800 of us on a seven-night itinerary to Florida and the Bahamas — were racing from novelty to novelty on the 1,141-foot-long ship. On Deck Sixteen: simulated skydiving in a 23-foot-high vertical wind tunnel that looked like a see-through smokestack. On Deck Three: the casino. In the SeaPlex recreation area: bumper cars. At the Bionic Bar: robots mixing drinks.

And don’t forget North Star, an observation capsule on a long arm that lifts passengers 300 feet above the sea and (when it’s not too windy) swings them over the side for staggering bird’s-eye views. Before anybody could go up, however, the ship’s captain, Henrik Soerensen, broke in on the public address system to welcome us and enlist our help.

“Please keep an eye on the temperature,” Soerensen said. “If it doesn’t get warmer, that means we’re going in the wrong direction.”

How long, I wondered, until that punchline is tweeted? Eager to spread the word of this ship’s wonders, Royal Caribbean has outfitted Quantum to be the Web-friendliest cruise ship ever so passengers can post their vacation tweets and snaps (after paying as much as $30 a day in Wi-Fi fees).

Condé Nast Traveler calls it “the first cruise ship built specifically for selfies.” The cruise line calls it the world’s first “smartship” and has a new app to help passengers book meals and activities.

Quantum isn’t just big and busy and filled with new technology. It’s also a telling move in the cruise industry’s global chess game.

In May, the ship moves to a home port in Shanghai, where Royal Caribbean hopes to entice a mix of Chinese and Western travelers. Meanwhile, Quantum has a near-identical sibling (Anthem of the Seas) due to debut in April and start sailing the Caribbean in November.

So how much fun is this smart new ship? It’s fun and it’s vexing, depending on what you’re up to.

Perhaps the ship’s biggest hit was the North Star observation pod, which holds up to 14 passengers at a time (first come, first served). Passengers waited up to two hours for their chance to spend about ten minutes in the sky, looking down on the ship and out to sea. The warmer the temperature got, the longer the line. I went up three times, on three different days, after waits of five, 20 and 90 minutes. On the way down, I asked my capsule companions whether the view was worth nearly two hours of waiting. The grins and yeses were unanimous.

The simulated skydiving classes, Ripcord by iFly, were almost too popular. Trainers said most of the available slots were booked before the cruise began, which left some passengers grumbling and others competing to fly “standby” when no-show spots opened up. (That’s how I got my chance.)

As for the faux flight itself, after you don a flight suit, watch a video and get a little personal training, you spend about a minute in the air with an instructor, hovering, spinning and getting buffeted from below. If you’ve ever wanted prominent cheekbones, have somebody snap your picture while you’re looking down at that big fan on the floor.

Unfortunately, Quantum’s new “dynamic dining” system isn’t as uplifting. Instead of relying on one grand dining room like ships of yesteryear (formalwear, captain’s table, ice sculptures, two assigned sittings per night), Royal Caribbean has re-imagined that space as 18 restaurants, including Asian, Italian, buffet, pub, and steakhouse options, from ultra-casual to formal.

This gives passengers more choice — and the cruise line more revenue, because eight of the restaurants charge extra fees, from a few bucks for a snack at Johnny Rockets to $45 per person for an evening of cutting-edge gastronomy at Wonderland.

The idea is that passengers will scan the choices and book their dinners online before boarding. Passenger Kevin Marshall of Pennsylvania said it worked perfectly for him. In fact, he said he would be back aboard in April for another cruise.

But many passengers viewed booking before boarding as a burden, and many had trouble making reservations. Every day, dozens appeared at the Passenger Services desk or at the restaurants’ entrances, stating their cases.

Although many passengers praised their meals, when I asked seven of them to grade the reservation system, the median rating was 6.5 out of ten.

“It was a lot of work to do this cruise,” said Sue Bonelli of Long Island, N.Y.

“I feel nickeled and dimed,” said her husband, Guido Bonelli, referring to the dining and Wi-Fi charges.

At a Q&A session on Day seven, Dean Bailey, the ship’s hotel director, told passengers that the dining program “is still evolving….It’s not where we want it to be.” Indeed, the ship had already added personnel and items to menus to appease passengers who prefer to stay put in the biggest dining rooms. But it’s clear there’s work to be done.

The ship’s Wi-Fi was hit-and-miss for me. After paying $140 for eight days of access for two devices, I lost my laptop and smartphone connections just about every day, sometimes more than once. (Conversely, I got so fond of my “virtual balcony” — the monitor disguised as a window in the ship’s 375 inside staterooms — that I left it on for the entire cruise.)

The ship’s entertainment got high marks for the singers who rose above the plot of the ABBA musical “Mamma Mia!” and for the dancers and musicians in striking original productions called “StarWater” and “Sonic Odyssey.” The 1,300-seat Royal Theater is a pleasant venue, and the space known as “Two70” is a multi-level entertainment area enlivened by six suspended video screens that tilt, slide, merge, and regroup to create remarkable visual effects.

The roster of family-friendly activities is long, including the FlowRider wave-maker (for surfing and boogie boarding), the rock-climbing wall (next to a 30-foot-tall magenta bear by sculptor Lawrence Argent), circus trapeze lessons, roller-skating, basketball and, in a nod to decades gone by, one lonely shuffleboard court.

“I tried rock climbing for the first time,” said Emanuel Strong, 40, a New York corrections officer who was traveling with his wife and two kids.

Heather Rubinstein, a veteran cruiser and wheelchair user who came from New York with her husband and two kids, told me that access on the ship was “pretty good.” (However, her husband had just lifted her to a spot that she couldn’t reach independently because crew members couldn’t find a key to some accessibility equipment.)

Passenger Tom Murray, who brought his family from London, loved the artwork and service. But he called the dining-and-entertainment reservation system a waste of time, found the main promenade cramped, and the ship “too gimmicky.”

Passengers Miranda Tso and Katty Lam, New York moms who brought a friends-and-family group, didn’t like the restaurant reservation scheme or the food. Next time, they said, they’ll try another cruise line.

I’m guessing the cruise line has already solved some of these problems. But the equation is about to change.

Before the ship moves to Shanghai, Quantum’s workers say, they’ll tear out the Music Hall bar, expand the casino, add shops, retune the restaurants and bring on more Mandarin-speaking crew. Tailoring the ship to Chinese passengers, many of them new to cruising, will surely mean more trial and error.

In other words, the world’s first smartship still has plenty to learn.
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IF YOU GO

Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas (www.royalcaribbean.com) sails between New Jersey and the Bahamas and Caribbean through late April, then goes to Europe and Asia. Beginning June 25, it will be based in Shanghai (Baoshan), with mostly four- and five-night cruises to ports such as Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Okinawa and Nagasaki in Japan, and Seoul (Incheon) and Busan in South Korea. For its July 26 four-night sailing to Incheon and back, rates for an interior stateroom for two begin at $1,036 per person. Airfare is excluded, as is $66 in taxes, fees, and port expenses.

I paid $1,649 for an interior single room on a seven-night Bahamas itinerary. Quantum’s sibling Anthem of the Seas will begin sailing Bahamas and Caribbean itineraries in November.

Photo: Christopher Reynolds via Los Angeles Times/TNS