All eight Le Meridien hotels in India are undergoing renovation to bring them in tune with the new design concept that is a part of the hotel chain’s brand transformation on a global scale. The exercise of making it a design-led product is a Starwood initiative which acquired Le Meridien in 2005.
The two upcoming hotels would also adopt the same design strategy. For instance, the hotel wants to do away with the traditional lobby concept and start a coffee house called ‘The Hub’ to break away from the clichéd structures. It hopes to create a socially interactive, “living room” kind of space in place of a lobby.
“We are trying to bring in some uniformity in the brand keeping in mind the main target audience for Le Meridien which is the creative traveller. We won’t have a cookie-cutter approach. We want the hotel design to generate curiosity and interaction among the travellers visiting us,” says Mike Tiedy, senior vice president, global brand design and innovation, Starwood Hotels and Resorts.
“It is a very smart move for Le Meridien. As hotel choices for travellers increase, it is very important for big established brands to stand for something special and different. And then make sure this special difference is manifested across the entire guest experience,” says Lulu Raghavan, country head, Landor Assocaiates India, a strategic brand consulting and design firm.
Some of the other interesting initiatives being taken by the company to incorporate art at various touch points in the hotel include artwork on doors, specially designed key card which besides being a souvenir also provides guests access to contemporary cultural centres across the world for free. Besides, it has also come up with a special soundscape for elevators with 1,600 sounds including those of birds and crickets. The soundscape created by Grammy Award winning composer Henri Scars was geared for generating conversation and curiosity.
“Le Merdien has had very quirky designs in the past. Each hotel was different from the other. Starwood is now aligning all Le Meridien
hotels in keeping with the Group’s expectations,” said P R Srinivas, Leader, Travel, Hospitality & Tourism, Deloitte India.
The company has come up with a group of LM 100 which has 28 members as of now -- all chosen from fields of art, architecture, music, filmmaking, cuisine etc to develop original and interactive programmes for Le Meridien hotels worldwide.
“Global hospitality research shows that there is a growing segment of guests that are bored of predictable hotel experiences. They are looking to be inspired whether through art, design, music, food etc. Boutique hotels have traditionally catered to this "creative class" really well. Now bigger brands want their share of this traveller as well. Le Meridien with its French credentials has the necessary credibility to adopt such a differentiated positioning,” said Raghavan.
The Le Méridien brand was established in 1972 by Air France and the first property was a 1,000-room hotel in Paris. This has ncreased to 100 properties across 50 countries.
The company consciously allowed owners to walk out if they were not open to making changes being envisioned by Starwood. One of the Le Meridien hotels in Mumbai changed to Hilton during this process. By 2013-14 the company expects that all its hotels will be aligned under a consistent brand identity.
