To meet the new needs of its clientele, the hotel industry has changed its strategy, redesigning spaces and services to welcome guests both indoors and outdoors. The aim: to engage them in a wellness experience that caters to all their emotional desires.

New and renovated hotels are now welcoming guests who have started travelling again, but whose needs have changed.

The concept of luxury has changed: it now blends exclusivity with other values, and environmental and social sustainability are among the most important. In today’s luxury suites you might find – instead of (or alongside) a bottle of champagne – an aluminium water bottle that you can fill up with filtered, mineral-enriched water at various exclusive water points the hotel has set up. A bit like those sophisticated, personalised room fragrances that have come to characterise the whole trip, and are permanently imprinted in the guest’s memory of that experience.

Attention to detail is key to the new concept of hospitality, and not only hotel chains but also cruise and forest lodge holidays are doing their utmost to please their clientele.

In response to these renewed demands, the contract sector is busy working on making the whole experience of staying in a hotel something of value, with attention to areas like the mattresses, the courtesy items provided and textiles (tableware, bed linen, towels), wellness areas and even the equipment guests need to make a perfect cup of espresso in their room.

The new hotels designed and furnished by leading designers are often transformations of highly evocative historic structures. Two recent examples are in London: the iconic Battersea Power Station, where the Art’otel recently opened, and the Raffles chain, which has breathed new life into what until the late 1960s was the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. Both focus on quality restaurants and cocktail bars – the latter in particular proving to be a draw for tourists in search of bartenders with great reputations, sometimes even outperforming the chefs – that are open up to non-guests, but reserve special attention for those actually staying at the hotel, who can find a whole range of high-level services on all aspects of their stay. From food and shopping to wellbeing, and of course now also for the ever more widespread remote working, which many travellers use as a way of “escaping” their homes, combining work with the discovery of new destinations.

All aspects of this rapidly evolving world, from furnishings and tableware to technology, equipment and amenities, will be on show at HostMilano from 12 to 17 October 2023. A not-to-be-missed event that will offer real insights into what the hospitality sector has in store for us in the years to come.