New hospitality trends could compete with Las Vegas Strip offerings
When booking her room for an expo in Las Vegas Valley this week, Vanessa Guilford said she was disappointed in her room selection.
She described them as spacey and excessive — they had no sense of the minimalism the designer strived for when working on a brand of microhotels in New York.
“It’s been sensory overload,” Guilford said of the Strip.
Guilford was among about 17,500 people drawn to Mandalay Bay Convention Center this week for the three-day Hospitality Design Expo and Conference that runs through Friday.
She was among the panelists to discuss designs and business models meant to disrupt traditional hospitality, found in spades on the Strip.
Here are three brands and models that panelists said could make hoteliers rethink hospitality should they come to the valley.
Airbnb Plus
The app that connects travelers with a room to rent in someone’s house has a new feature to verify a high-class reservation.
The new feature is only available in 13 cities right now. But when it comes to Las Vegas, it could put Airbnb in more direct competition with local hotels.
Introduced in February, Airbnb Plus puts certain available rooms at a higher tier based on a variety of factors.
The houses must have high ratings from guests, accept 95 percent of booking requests, have no cancellations in the past year, and be inspected in person for a list of required amenities like available soap, hair dryers and high-speed internet connection.
The service was introduced to appeal to Airbnb users concerned that landlords were exaggerating the quality of the room for rent, Airbnb’s lead interior designer, Rebecca Ruggles, said during a panel. Ruggles’ own grandparents still hesitate to book a room with the app, she said.
The new feature also rewards hosts who put attention and thought into their home decor.
“This is a profession,” Ruggles said. “They are masters of hospitality.”
The average cost of a Plus listing is under $250 a night, which compares to the regular average listing of $100 a night. The service is available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Shanghai, London, Rome, Milan, Toronto, Chicago, Austin, Texas, Cape Town, South Africa, as well as Sydney and Melbourne, Australia.
Camping in luxury
Marketing itself as a business in “glamping,” or glamorous camping, Under Canvas will open a campsite near Grand Canyon by 2019 and already has one outside Zion National Park.
For the Zion location, two adults can pay $6,200 for a package that includes three nights of lodging and three days of meals and travel insurance.
Co-founder Sarah Dusek said she doesn’t have immediate plans for a campsite near Las Vegas.
The company’s desert locations have drawn the most customers, though they have been the most difficult to set up logistically with utilities like a water connection, Dusek said.
A concept like Under Canvas could lure Las Vegas Valley visitors away from the Strip and introduce them to Southern Nevada’s natural beauty, she said.
Microhotels
As Marriott has rolled out its microhotel franchise Moxy, the question of how small is too small has stayed on executives’ minds.
The smallest the brand has gone so far is about 150 square feet, said Vicki Poulos, senior global brand director of Moxy Hotels.
Guilford, the principal design director for microhotel brand Pod, said the smallest room available at a Pod hotel is 70 square feet.
The microhotel concept of rooms around and under 200 square feet has found success in more congested cities.
The philosophy behind the microhotels — small room spaces and large communal areas for visitors to interact with each other — might bring to mind the Airstream park project by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.
The panelists dismissed the idea of a microhotel in a city without space constraints, but they individually said the concept could work in Las Vegas.
“People here spend such little time in their rooms,” Poulos told the Review-Journal. “It’s all about the food, the booze, the fun. This would provide a value in that aspect.”
On Wednesday, the rate for a room at the Moxy near Phoenix ran for $149 a night, according to the company’s website. The rate for a room at Pod Times Square in New York started at $169 a night.
The annual average for a room on the Strip in 2017 was $140, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Contact Wade Tyler Millward at wmillward@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4602. Follow @wademillward on Twitter.
