Experience Design Is The Next Disruption for Chains

Marriott announed that they will bring designers’ touch to their chains. With big names designers like Starck and Graves who lift Target to the contemporary design class, I think it is really a matter of time that they bring their ideas to hotels, restaurants or even gas stations. Hip hotelier Ian Schrager, the founder of the concept of boutique hotels, is partnering up with Marriott. The idea is to have Schrager to design about 100 boutique hotels for the as-yet-unnamed brand in major cities across the US, South America, Europe and Asia, and Marriott International will operate them. Mariott plans to leverage Mr. Schrager’s aesthetic ingenuity and cachet with its own marketing and organizational muscle to enter into the boutique segment, still the fastest-growing in the hotel industry with healthy margins. It is estimated that the global market for the boutique segment is $6 to $7 billion a year and half is in the US. I believe in the next three months they will be busy doing these roadshows to sell the idea to investors.

According to Mr. Mariott, “Schrager is going to be developing a new experience for people looking for more than just a bed, and breakfast.”. For those who is old enough to remember that Mr. Schrager was co-founder of the Studio 54 and Palladium nightclubs in New York City in the late 70s. His other project included Royalton and Paramount hotels in Manhattan to the Delano in South Beach and the Mondrian in West Hollywood and that’s how we earned the rock-star status of hip hotelier . I love the Delano. By tapping into his circle of renowned architects and designers, Schrager can definitely transform these properties.

While there's no announcement on  who those "renowned architects and designers" will be, Schrager says,  "...believe me, I'm not going to have a book of standards. It will be..." He paused for effect. "The anti-chain." That’s the strategy and probably a smart one. Coincidently, my business partner Scott and I were talking about the idea of bringing contemporary designs to many less obvious industries. I think there’s a lot can be done with this “anti-chain” idea. The three biggest opportunities would be the transformation of "de-chain" of 1/ fast food chain 2/ car dealership and 3/ chain restaurants. May be I need to be pitching these ideas soon. Scott, start your idea engine!