In another edition of his “Reisefieber” (Travel Nerves) column, Wolfgang Bachmann reveals why not every random trend in the hotel industry is crowned with success and what really helps guests.
It’s amazing the places you can sleep in these days: in the middle of the jungle with squawking parakeets, in a Formula 1 racing car, in a sailor’s cottage, in a girl’s bedroom, on the set of a musical, in an Ayurvedic meditation room, in a brothel. You don’t need to go on any exotic, long-distance trips to get there, you just have to find a themed hotel, of which there are plenty – at least in Germany.
This trend is undoubtedly a form of revenge aimed squarely at journalists who have complained for years that on business trips they are always booked into anonymous, characterless hotels – and which conform to internationally standardized codes and all look the same. “Where am I again?” my colleagues would think as they woke up beneath sweaty synthetic blankets, the morning after a lengthy, boozy press conference. “In Oberhausen, Saarbrücken or Delmenhorst?” Something really did need to be done about this.
The hoteliers realised that the minibar, the hairdryer and the breakfast buffet simply didn’t cut it anymore; they had to offer their guests some serious added value. In particular, the overworked company representatives, or in common terms, sales reps – who spend nights on end in hotel beds – had to be offered a unique accommodation “experience”. Interior designers were thus tasked with the challenge of bringing together conventional amenities, German building standards, and fictional backdrops. Guests were not to feel unduly confused or unsettled, however; it had to be intuitively clear that the old “safe” is the mini-bar, the antlers behind the door double as coat hooks, and the nautical bucket with decorative rope handles can be used as a waste paper basket.
Of course, sometimes you do feel a little silly when you’re caught off guard by a flamboyantly themed room. As if you’ve been thrust on stage in a play without having learnt your lines. Or someone has invited you to join in the German Karneval parade, when they know perfectly well that you hate dressing up. At least you can enjoy some measure of Schadenfreude that the other guests look just as silly as you do, as they sit there in their crumpled suits, on carpet stacks or freight crates with gasoline barrels for tables, and – whether voluntarily or not – play along in this immersive performance of “Breakfast in a Harbour Warehouse”. And yet, all the while, there is one satisfying, transferable, endlessly versatile theme that might be adopted instead: good architecture.
Text: Wolfgang Bachmann
Photo: Pouyan Nahed/ unsplash
About the author:
Wolfgang Bachmann was editor-in-chief and then publisher of the architecture magazine “Baumeister”. In addition to his journalistic work, he is widely known for his often tongue-in-cheek columns, e.g. in Baumeister and for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. A selection of Wolfgang Bachmann’s “Reisefieber” columns has appeared in HOLIDAYARCHITECTURE under the title “Fremde Zimmer” (“Foreign Rooms”). If you would like to purchase this still highly amusing travel book, you can find remaining copies (German version only!) here.
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