i-escape.com Opens Up the Boutique Hotel Debate with A Five Step Boutique Test Suggestion
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i-escape.com Opens Up the Boutique Hotel Debate with A Five Step Boutique Test Suggestion
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Category: Worldwide - Industry economy -
Trends / Expert's advice
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on 2008-04-09
Hotel review website i-escape.com is opening up a hot debate in the hotel world over the use of the term ‘boutique hotel’. The company is suggesting that the industry should adopt a much stricter definition.
i-escape.com believes that hotels should employ their suggested five step boutique test in order to use the hallowed term - boutique.
i-escape.com believes the term has become so diluted since it was first coined in 1980's New York (allegedly by Morgan’s pioneer Ian Schrager) that it is now applied to any new or refurbished hotel with an ounce of branding, no matter how small or beautiful. Recently the website’s editor read about a new 'boutique hotel' in Atlantic City with 500 identical rooms, a 250-car parking lot, a retail centre and direct access to its sister casino. Surely this is like calling Tesco a family-run deli?
The Business Dictionary defines a boutique hotel as a "small but exclusive property that caters to affluent clientele with an exceptional level of service at premium prices".
Wikipedia thinks it is an "intimate, usually luxurious or quirky" hotel which differentiates itself from chain hotels through personalized accommodation and service.
i-escape.com would be happy to accept the term is for "a small, usually urban hotel with distinctive design, personalised service and independent ownership". But even then, it would have to admit that there are boutique hotels in the countryside, boutique hotels which are owned by small chains (Stein, Hospes etc), and boutique hotels whose decor is a cookie-cutter copy of the now-standard noughties look.
So i-escape.com would like to suggest five criteria the industry should employ as the ultimate ‘boutique test’.
i-escape.com's five steps to boutique
1. small – we have put the limit at 50 rooms (rural) or 150 rooms (urban). Anything really small - under 10 rooms or lacking hotel services can go for a spin-off term like 'boutique B&B' or 'boutique guesthouse'. We have even come across 'boutique campsites', while apartments are increasingly dubbed a 'boutique bolthole'.
2. personalised – it has to be an antidote to our automated world, with friendly staff who greet you by name (we're talking 'Hi Michael' rather than 'Hello Mr. Cullen'), rooms which vary one from another (personalised book and CD collections in your room earn bonus points) and a friendly, sociable bar.
3. stylish – if it looks like an office block or grandma's spare room, then you might as well stay at work, or visit granny; this should be a treat for today's time-poor, cash-rich travellers. Bespoke artwork and design classics earn extra points – though it does not have to be a design hotel (see below) to be a boutique hotel. But design clichés lose points (monochromes with one swirl of Osborne & Little wallpaper, single green apple or kala lily in vase, bowl-shaped basin with concealed lighting etc).
4. contemporary– somehow you can't call it boutique if it has Louis XIV chairs and chintzy curtains. We need hi-tech extras: flatscreen TV's and wifi are de rigueur, ipod docks and laptops score extra points.
5. independently owned – a multinational chain, with its standardised procedures, uniform room décor and high staff turnover, cannot be boutique, however hard they try (as Starwood have with their W hotels, for example). But smaller chains can get away with it: we reckon anything up to 20 co-owned / co-branded hotels leaves enough room for individual expression.
What about the luxury level? Boutiques are rarely cheap, but that is more a by-product of the high service levels and small number of rooms. In fact the biggest growth in the boutique sector during 2006-7 has been downwards – into what i-escape.com describes as its "affordable chic" category (typically $150-250 per room).
And what about facilities? An in-house restaurant and bar, preferably serving classy cuisine and cocktails in a buzzy ambiance, will certainly boost the boutique hotel rating (but a boutique B&B doesn't need these, of course). Spas, fitness centres and saunas are increasingly common - over the last 10 years, it seems that every hotel in the world has built a spa; however we feel this is not a prerequisite for a boutique hotel. (But put all three in a city hotel and, hey presto, you have got an urban sanctuary).
And why use the name boutique anyway? This means 'shop' in French? Does a true boutique hotel have to sell its furniture or artwork? A lot of them now do (it is a good way to road test a designer lamp or even a bed before buying). But of course it is not a pre-requisite, it is a clever additional income stream to pay off all that bespoke design.
Talking of design, what is a design hotel? As you would expect there is a clear emphasis on design but unlike the boutique hotel, size doesn't seem to be such a constraint: Ian Schrager's New York Gramercy Park Hotel has 190 rooms whilst London's Cumberland hotel has a whopping 1000 rooms. Everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon which is perhaps why the Berlin-based marketing company 'design hotels AG' trademarked the name. They now have 140 paid-up member hotels. But that has not stopped lots of other places using the term.
The same applies to hip hotel, which was coined by Herbert Ypma in his 1999 book "Hip Hotels: City" and has since spread across 15 titles. His definition? Hotels which are "excitingly different and aesthetically pleasing", and which "have become the destination".
The future of boutique
And the big question - what is the new 'boutique hotel'? Has someone already devised that two-word epithet which we will be using in 10 years time? Hoteliers are always trying to stress their difference, so you will find plenty of unique hotels, character hotels, even experience hotels. On the other hand the green wave is still rolling, so expect even more eco-lodges, nature retreats, maybe a few carbon-neutral hotels (the UK got its first one a few years ago, at TYF in Wales).
As more people travel, privacy and homeliness are at a premium - so look out for private residences and variants on the word home (Home Hotel, Home Apartments etc). Hearteningly for i-escape.com we are coming across more and more escape-related tags: exclusive escape, urban sanctuary, exotic retreat. Plus of course our own i-escape - which includes our top boutique hotels (plus some non-boutique favourites) in 40 countries around the world. Perhaps that's what it's all about: hotels as the antidote to daily life, the escape from normality.
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