ORLANDO, Florida—Guests who stay at extended-stay properties often do so as a result of a stressful or anxiety-ridden situation, such as when displaced from home, for medical reasons, as a result of domestic strife, when starting a new job or while working for an extended amount of time in a new city.
For this reason, InterContinental Hotels Group is in the process of rolling out initiatives at their Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites brands to further ease the discomfort of being away from home.
Rob Radomski, VP of global brand management for IHG’s extended-stay brands, said 77 properties (58 Candlewood and 19 Staybridge Suites) already have undergone extensive renovations that include refreshing the bathrooms, kitchens and furnishings.
The goal is to create an environment that doesn’t look so much like a hotel but more like someone’s home, Radomski said.
Executives at IHG have noted that guests at Candlewood Suites properties tend to be more long-term travelers than those at Staybridge properties. Because of that, the renovation initiative at Candlewood includes the addition of more shelves and storage space for guests who like to put up pictures of their families and store items a typical guest wouldn’t bring to a hotel.
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Rob Radomski IHG |
The design process behind the Staybridge Suites refresh was driven by the concept of modernization. “You only have so much room to work with in a hotel,” Radomski said, so innovation was crucial. Storage cubes that double as a footstool in front of the sofa have worked really well thus far, he added.
Making guests feel more at home
What really distinguishes a Candlewood Suites property and a Staybridge Suites property from one another is the type of guests who stay in each, Radomski said.
“The Candlewood Suites guest tends to be a more self-sufficient type of traveler. … These guests tend to like their privacy and like their independence,” he said.
This led IHG executives to develop programs based on the concept of trusting the guest, or the “honor system.” For example, guests who want to purchase an item from the Candlewood Cupboard, the hotels’ convenience stores, do not have to make their purchase at the front desk. Instead, they pick out what they would like, fill out a piece of paper detailing what they took, slip it into a box and it gets added to their bill. “Guests like that it is operated on the honor of trust,” Radomski said.
That concept has been expanded into Candlewood Suites’ new “lending locker” initiative.
Some items guests typically use at home, such as a George Foreman grill or a Crockpot, might not be available to the guest when staying at a hotel. “The lending locker is where we put these often requested items in a place where guests can come up, borrow them and when they’re done, they can return them,” Radomski said.
Guests feel trusted and more comfortable in the hotel as a result, he said. The program will launch in early 2013 and should be rolled out over the next year or two to all hotels.
As for Staybridge Suites, where guests tend to be a little more outgoing and social, IHG has renovated its “evening social” events, which take place Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings.
“This year, we enhanced our evening social by creating a new food–and-beverage menu,” Radomki said. Customizable food entrées that allow guests to create their own sliders, soft tacos and mashed potatoes, creates variety, “and it’s the kind of food that lends itself to a casual social environment,” he said.
Conservation initiatives
Being careful to make decisions that have a positive impact on the environment was also top of mind for IHG executives, Radomski said.
“We’ve been very conscious of creating something that has some meaning beyond design,” he said.
A partnership with graduate art students at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta was beneficial in this aspect.
The students worked with housekeepers from IHG’s extended-stay properties to learn more about what they thought guests were looking for and what would make sense in the rooms.
They “helped us come up with some different conservation solutions,” Radomski said. For example, the option is now available for extended-stay owners to use carpet tiles rather than standard carpeting, which helps reduce waste as well as costs if carpet is damaged.
If there’s damage done, “you can just replace one section of the carpet rather than having to replace the whole thing … There’s less going into the landfill,” he said.