By Rebekah Icenesse
Trends in the meetings and events industry are continuously evolving, especially in the last three years. After hybrid meetings and conferences, working from home, and “bleisure” travel, the emerging industry trends are taking things back to what we are familiar with: comfort, wellness, and technology.
Redesigned Hotel Lobbies Welcome Comfort
As living spaces and workspaces blended together over the past few years from the pandemic, hotels are beginning to redesign hotel lobbies to emphasize the comfort of home. Focusing on more contemporary styles with an emphasis on neutral tones and warm hues, the interior design of hotel lobbies will showcase an inviting aura where guests can feel right at home. Utilizing cool colors along with neutral undertones in the decor can create a calm, inviting atmosphere for guests first checking into the hotel. Combining materials of sleek glass, wood, and stone surfaces allows for a natural and familiar sense of space.
Warm overhead lighting, in chandeliers made up of flowing lines and shapes, offers a cozier ambiance for guests lounging in the lobby. Incorporating floor and table lamps in the lobby space invites an even comfier sense of relaxation, just like at home.
Keeping Sustainability and Wellness in Mind
Not only do hotel guests want to feel cozy during their travel stay, but they also want to feel that the hotel environment is safe and non-risk. Monitoring the air quality throughout the hotel can help decrease the spread of airborne transmissions. It also reportedly increases cognitive function and productivity. More hoteliers can implement air quality tracking systems to ensure their guests’ and employees’ physical and mental health is not at risk.
Sustainability is another focal point for hotels: optimizing environment-friendly materials in the interior designs, offering refill stations and reusable water carafes in guest rooms, and limiting single use plastic. Hotels are also homing in on creating more natural light with additional floor-to-ceiling windows. Designers are becoming more mindful of making spaces feel open and refreshing by increasing the size of windows in meeting and conference rooms, thereby providing as much natural light as possible.
Artificial Intelligence Regulates Security at Events
As events return to pre-pandemic numbers, event producers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to data mine information about event attendees. AI can use facial recognition for event registration, which would make the check-in process quicker and offer an additional security measure. Utilizing AI for event registration limits the number of humans needing to check every attendee’s badge and cuts the risk of potential badge sharing. The video surveillance scanning facial recognition also reduces the possibility of unauthorized entries into the event.
AI can also be used for event support, where attendees use a mobile app and AI can offer its assistance. The cost of using AI could become expensive, but when weighing the pros and cons, AI could be a useful tool to make events and event security run more efficiently and effectively.
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Rebekah Icenesse is a contributing writer from St. Louis.
