Our blog post, “When sh*t happens, shift happens”, says it all. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s needs and wants have fundamentally shifted, which has in turn ushered in a wave of trends. At MAp, we believe that your people should always be at the centre of what it is you do, so success will ultimately hinge on how hotels respond to the key trends poised to shape the year ahead.

We’ve taken the time to monitor the market’s new developments and pick the most important ones. Without further ado, MAp presents our top hotel concept trends to watch for in 2021:

You’ve heard of sustainable travel, but have you heard of regenerative travel? The principle of regeneration goes one step further than sustainability, which aims toward neutral impact, to reverse and repair the damage to our environment and local communities. It’s no longer about minimising impact, but taking critical actions to heal the earth and its people, or as the New York Times puts it simply: “leaving a place better than you found it.” For hotels, regenerative measures include providing guests with opportunities to partake in restoration projects or funding educational initiatives.

Regenerative values are emerging as the future of travel, as COVID-19 has forced travellers to reflect on the basic notions of why and how we travel, creating a paradigm shift in the industry and a demand toward making net-positive contributions to all stakeholders. And travel as a force for good is needed now more than ever, as destinations heavily reliant on tourism have been decimated by the pandemic, creating an acute need to rebuild impacted communities.

Considerations for your hotel concept:

According to Regenerative Travel, the following principles should guide hotels in developing hotel concepts that are truly regenerative.

• Incorporate whole systems thinking. Consider all stakeholders and elements, such as the physical land, in your decision-making, taking into account potential ramifications.
• Honour the sense of place. Weave the local community – its culture, practices, history, heritage, etc. – into every aspect of the guest experience.
• Partner with and include the local community. Bring in the diverse expertise and intimate knowledge of community members when planning, constructing and operating your hotel.
• Have a purpose. At MAp, we believe purpose is key! Determine what your purpose is, and from that create an aspirational vision and mission that inspires your guests.

Inspiration: Fogo Island Inn

If there’s anything we’ve learned from the pandemic, it’s that remote working is here to stay. And while some will opt to #workfromhome, others will opt to #workfromhotel, taking their work on the road with them as they set out to explore the world. Hotels, therefore, should be well-positioned to support this mobile and global workforce – and that means going beyond the lobby-as-co-working space model.

Instead, hotels should strive to understand what it is this segment wants and needs – and deliver! Remote workers have extremely high standards when it comes to their ability to do their jobs, so be focused on creating private and productive working environments, upgrading your tech capabilities and giving guests the amenities they need be at their best – on and off the clock.

Considerations for your hotel concept:

• Build a community. Provide opportunities for remote workers to connect with, learn from and support each other.
• Be functional and flexible. No one works the same way, so make your rooms work-friendly and flexible (that’s right – put those desks on wheels!).
• Strike a balance between work and pleasure. Give remote workers what they need to be productive, but also what they want when it comes to unwinding after a long day “at the office.”
• Don’t forget the locals. Cater to local workers looking for a change-of-scenery from their home offices.

Inspiration: gravity haus

Times are tough and budgets are limited. And this has led to the resurgence of the “value traveller” – not to be confused with the “budget traveller,” often associated with the term cheap.

Value travellers are looking to stretch their money as far as possible. While they are cost-conscious, they are willing to spend where their priorities lie. But what they’re not willing to do? Sacrifice quality or comfort. They are well-travelled and have just as high of standards as the next guy.

Value travellers seek out transparency on cancellation and refund policies, free breakfasts, activities at little to no extra charge. But also comfy beds, room service, luxe amenities. For this segment, it’s about finding the right balance.

Considerations for your hotel concept:

• Throw in freebies. Everyone appreciates a good freebie!
• Determine amenity must-haves. Figure out and incorporate those amenities that matter most for your target audience.
• Create a loyalty programme. Reward return guests with extra – and free – perks.
• Sell hotel packages. Combine accommodation, transport and activities into one attractive rate.

Inspiration: 25hours Hotels

The year 2020 proved that privacy is the new luxury. As we’ve seen, private forms of accommodation have surged during the pandemic. Travellers are seeking out more remote, secluded and off-grid destinations, away from the crowds and nestled in nature – that’s what people crave after all this time spent indoors! And on top of that, they’re travelling in small groups or with family members (expect a swell in multigenerational travel), therefore opting for villas, cabins or holidays homes that are more spacious, accommodating – and you guessed it - private.

This trend has been a boon for Airbnb and Vrbo, but not for traditional hotels that simply can’t offer the same levels of privacy. However, hotels that cater to this new mindset will reap the rewards of more reservations.

Considerations for your hotel concept:

• Weave in nature. Wherever possible, provide opportunities to soak up surrounding nature through guided hikes and the like.
• Consider the destination. For any future hotel projects, the rule of thumb is: the more secluded, the better.
• Provide luxury services. Think airport pickups, dedicated butlers and private chefs.
• Rethink the hotel room. Switch up the standard by introducing private villas or even tents.

Inspiration: Casa de Campo

As a purpose-driven boutique consultancy, this is a trend we’re excited about!

After a year of sitting inside, it seems that travellers have acquired a taste for a slower pace. That’s where the concept of “slow travel” comes in. Slow travel aims to give travellers a rich understanding of life in a destination through interactions with locals and immersive experiences. We expect to see travellers spend more time discovering a destination and visiting fewer places during a single trip - while enjoying more experiences, culture and traditions.

And this goes hand-in-hand with “purposeful travel,” or the idea of travelling more responsibly and with purpose. It’s intentional and immersive, conscious and connected —with yourself, the destination, and the greater world.

Considerations for your hotel concept:

• Connect to place. As stated above, incorporate the destination into all aspects of your hotel – from the design, to the food, to the services, and beyond.
• Create immersive experiences. Give guests the opportunity to immerse themselves with and learn about local people, culture and heritage, and history.
• Take it slow. Focus on creating a relaxing retreat where guests can unwind.
• Be more purposeful. Determine your own “why” that drives you. As we at MAp like to say: “You first have to stand for something, before you can stand out for something.”

Inspiration: Nihi Sumba

That’s a wrap on MAp’s top hotel concept trends for 2021! While the hospitality industry has been forever changed (and as evolution tells us: when something changes, it’s usually for the better), we can agree that it has to evolve and reinvent itself in order to take advantage of the opportunities and cope with the challenges it faces. Ever the unshakable optimists, we believe the industry will come out on top!

#onwards

Photo Credits: Fogo Island Inn, gravity haus, 25hours Hotel, Casa de Campo, Nihi Sumba

Dear Harsha, thank you for taking the time to meet with us. To start, can you please share the story behind Saira Hospitality and how it came to be?

My four sisters and I were strongly influenced by my father’s philanthropic work with Mother Teresa and I always sought to merge a deep-rooted dedication to philanthropy with my passion: luxury hospitality. In 2011, I visited Cambodia where I came across a non-profit that was training women, who would otherwise fall into sex trafficking, in hospitality to be employed as housekeepers. They had a 90% plus success rate of placing these women into employment at luxury hotels which I found hugely inspiring and was grateful to see firsthand how these two worlds of philanthropy and hospitality could be connected. After years of working for international hotel brands including Six Senses Resorts and Residences, the Fullerton Hotel and André Balazs properties, I enrolled in the MMH graduate program at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, where I began developing the concept for Saira Hospitality. During our Winter break, I was working at the Aman Galle when I overheard an interview between an Italian General Manager and a local Sri Lankan. The GM clearly wanted to hire the local Sri Lankan man as a pool cleaner for a variety of reasons I guessed: the cost would be less than hiring an expat, locals add to the guest experience and wanting to do the right thing by the community. From what I could see and hear, the local Sri Lankan man seemed to truly want the job, be on time for the interview, arrive well dressed and appear positive yet he didn’t have the simple interview skills he needed to be hired. The non-profit hotel school concept was clear at this point and seemed to be meeting a need on both sides. Hotel operators often cannot find well-trained, local talent and local communities are seeking opportunities and employment but lack the skills they need to be employed. Saira Hospitality won first place at Cornell University’s Business Plan competition in 2014 and it was at this point that I recognized the strong correlation between hospitality and philanthropy. Both are linked through the hospitality gene, the gene of service: service to the guest and service to humanity.

What is your approach and what kind of content do you cover as part of your training programme?

We partner with hotels around the world and launch pop-up hotel schools for local communities, providing hospitality operators with higher retention, community diplomacy and local talent upon opening. We identify their future hiring needs and incorporate as much of the brand's orientation, culture and training as possible into the curriculum content so students at the end of the program, form a pool of well-trained, local labor for the brand to hire from on schedule.

After a rigorous four-step interview process, applicants are accepted and students are taken through two to eight weeks of hospitality training provided by hospitality experts, including Cornell Hotel School graduates. During Saira’s training, students engage in both theoretical and experiential learning. We teach the key skills we feel they need to gain employment with partner hotels, emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, leadership, communication, service recovery, mindfulness and so on.

We also focus on hands-on learning, typically in the departments of Food and Beverage, Front Office and Housekeeping but we can also train for those skills needed in other departments, according to the needs of our brand partner/s. Hospitality, as a people industry, is incredibly subjective and emotional, which is why Saira can even exist. You don’t need to have a formal education to be successful in hospitality — to be successful in hospitality you have to be empathetic and understand human behavior. Saira’s role is about nurturing what we call “the hospitality gene.” We believe in teaching skills that can be applied both when working in hospitality but also to the personal lives of the students. Some of our students in the past have managed to heal broken marriages by learning about the communication skills we teach in class. Much of what we teach enriches both the professional and personal lives of our students.

What hotel brands have you worked with and what kind of benefits have they seen as a result of your partnership?

Today Saira has graduated 250 students with an average of 10% turnover to participating hotel partners, including Virgin Limited Edition, Rosewood Hotels, Autograph Collection, Bunkhouse Hotels and Habitas in downtown Los Angeles, Mexico, British Virgin Islands and Namibia. They have also met 100% of their hiring needs from our graduates within the local community.

What is the impact you have on local communities?

Everything we do is centred on empowering local communities. I believe offering a free, high standard of education to communities that may not have the privilege to access information is one of the most valuable commodities that you can provide someone. In our most recent project with Habitas that took us to Namibia, we had more than 300 applications and encountered people that hadn’t had a job in eight years, who, when asked out of curiosity in Saira interviews how much money they needed to survive each month, some were happy to earn even $50 USD per month from any job they could get. In countries that are experiencing socio-economic hardship, Saira is providing a platform for a career in hospitality, and at the very least, some belief in themselves that they can achieve one.

After our BVI pop-ups, we had the following results:

• 98% of Saira graduates now see hospitality as a career
• 80% of graduates currently work in hospitality
• 94% of students found the program beneficial to work performance
• 69% of graduates hired were previously unemployed
• 91% of Saira graduates are currently employed or in school

Where do you envision the future of hospitality going as it relates to social impact? And what steps can hoteliers take to increase their social impact?

We partnered with Porter and Sail in the hope of raising funds from potential guests who want to play their part in educating and empowering local communities. We hope these kinds of partnerships will eventually allow us to launch schools with smaller, independent hotels that may not have the resources to fund 100% of the school themselves but are still wanting to train and hire the local community. Guests today have a conscience and want to travel more thoughtfully - they are travelling more mindfully than ever which we need to take advantage of as we don’t know how long it will last for. We need hotels and OTA’s to take responsibility and to listen to the needs of the community to be able to provide the guest a variety of options where they can easily give back while traveling. We often think that donations involve financial resources but I believe volunteering even a couple of hours of your time on vacation can be life-changing, shifting someone’s mindset, sharing knowledge.

If you can afford to travel, share your knowledge with those who can’t afford to. We need the next generation of guests to help us spread awareness of what we do, so that the industry stops using an ancient model of hiring and instead creates a responsible and sustainable future for hospitality.

We at MA people are specialised in crafting innovative hotel concepts and brands: what makes a hotel experience a truly outstanding one for you personally?

For a hotel experience to be outstanding for me, it has to be a thoughtful experience. I always think first of the service. As we teach at Saira, 70% of an experience is emotional. How did the experience make you feel? How did the service make you feel? The product can be of the highest design and quality but if the service doesn’t match the product, the experience won’t stand out. Even at the most expensive hotels, if the service doesn’t feel genuine and thoughtful, it becomes just another five star hotel with high end amenities and scripted service that doesn’t meet the needs of each unique guest.Then, once I’m fascinated and excited by the level of service, only then will the design of the hotel, the flow of the experiences, the F&B offerings, the picturesque views and so on... only then do they come alive.