That's Hot

In the future, smart conference chairs will adjust automatically to changing body temperatures and acoustical conditions; hotel guestroom walls will morph from views of outer space to the deep sea; and kinetic corridors will guide the utterly lost to their guestroom doors.

These were just a few of the hundreds of market-changing ideas that came out of the second Hotel of Tomorrow (HOT) project, the brainchild of Hospitality Design magazine and Gettys, a Chicago-based design firm, which took place on June 7 in New York City. Roughly 100 hospitality leaders—from manufacturers and designers to travel journalists and hoteliers—took part in the day-long ideation led by Dave Norton, principal and lead trategist of Stone Mantel, an innovation consultancy.

Participants, including Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, Alias, National Geogr- aphic Traveler, and 20 supplier sponsors, brainstor- med the hotel of tomorrow by embracing researched megatrends from nanotechnology and world flattening to renewable resources and personalisation, which ultimately chart the future. By viewing each megatrend through the eyes of a potential guest—an aging person, an environmentalist, an escapist, a wellness seeker, the business traveller, a youngster—participants took a nolimits approach to invention. After several extended ideations, Norton initiated a game-show-style "lightning round," pumping contest- ants for new ideas in seconds flat. Peer jurors lauded a lighted toilet seat for seniors (how high tech can you get?) and travelogue-on-demand technology to assist business travellers in foreign cities.

As for the sci-fi robot that performs a personalized morning makeover in your guestroom, you will have a few more wrinkles to deal with by then. Hotelwide holographic media-on-demand may take a few years to perfect as well. Ditto for garbage fuel that powers the property; smart germs that eat the bad ones; and consumption meters that charge guests not just for room nights, but for the energy and water they use during their stay.