What is a lifestyle hotel?
Are you looking for the luxury of a boutique hotel on a chain hotel budget? Consider booking a lifestyle hotel for your next trip.
Lifestyle hotels are boutique hotels with the convenience of a chain. Lifestyle hotels offer beautiful, unique design coupled with an intimate and personal service. However, this comes with a high cost. Chain hotels are a far cheaper alternative, but they’re often bereft of personality and luxury.
Although, travellers are no longer forced to pick between one or the other. A new type of hotel has emerged recently. Lifestyle hotels combine the perks of a chain with the style of a boutique.
As hotel chains continue to buy into the growing popularity of lifestyle hotels, visitors have access to the modern and intimate setting of a boutique hotel, coupled with the affordable prices and loyalty schemes of a chain.
They usually feature an abundance of tech and unusual design, with a strong focus placed on quality service, which helps to improve the customer’s wellbeing during the stay.
Marriott have Edition Hotels, a collection of unique luxury hotels created by boutique pioneer Ian Schrager. Likewise, they also own Element Hotels through Starwood, which offers an eco-friendly space to stay. Hyatt has Andaz Hotels, a collection of boutique hotels styled around the local culture. Virgin Hotels are also on the lookout for boutique hotels to merge with.
Competition in the lifestyle hotel market is increasing, which reflects growing consumer interest. But what do lifestyle hotels do differently to other hotels?
So what is a lifestyle hotel and what do they offer travellers?
Travellers love boutique hotels for the personalised service on offer. However, with an abundance of money to conduct research and train staff, chain hotels are slowly but surely optimising and improving services. Whether it’s through a simple conversation at check-in or an extra bottle of shampoo left in the bathroom, chain hotels have the resources to discover exactly what their customers want during their stay.
However, the difficult part of running a lifestyle hotel is keeping up with changing tastes and trends. It’s likely that the Travelodge you visited 10 years ago looks almost identical today. However, the cheap prices ensure that customers continue to visit.
Yet, boutique hotels are an entirely different game. Not only does a lifestyle hotel have to keep up with the hotel industry’s trends, but it must also consider how the art and design world is changing, as well as local culture. The changes required might be as simple as a new coat of paint or a new item on the restaurant menu. However, ensuring that these changes are made is vital to enticing customers to stay.
Of course, a high-quality boutique hotel offers an unrivaled and intimate service that it is difficult to find elsewhere. However, if cost-effectiveness is at the top of your priorities when searching for a hotel, but a dull, generic living space is likely to bring your mood down during your break, a lifestyle hotel is a great alternative that combines the best parts of both.
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