Design
Left: The exterior of the Disneyland Paris resort hotel, one of the earliest themed hotels.
Opposite page: At the Bratwursthotel, every room has a sausage-based theme.
or even risk their sanity at a hotel run entirely by robots (Japan, obviously). Not that embracing themed hospitality is as straightforward as the Bratwursthotel suggests. On the contrary, success requires careful collaboration and intensive attention to detail. And if eccentrics like Böbel clearly have fun flaunting their creations, other challenges lurk behind the pork mincer too. If, after all, a themed hotel attracts a certain type of guest, it presumably follows that others are likely to be put off by their strangeness. Although committing to a style has the potential to draw obsessives from far and wide, what happens if tastes change and your dream property transforms from an eye-catching zoo hotel into just another white elephant?
The dream theme Themed hospitality has been around for decades. As long ago as 1955, for instance, Disney unveiled a fairy tale hotel at its park in California. Even today, the property’s signature suite boasts a four-poster canopy bed and a special greeting from Tinkerbell. Yet, as Andy White explains, themed hotels have recently hopped to new heights. “I think they’ve always been popular,” says White, owner at Andy White Creative, a prominent hotel resort and visitor attraction design firm. “But I think they’re definitely growing as a kind of family experience.” As White implies, this growth can partly be
understood in terms of children. Especially since the post-pandemic revival of family vacations – the 2021 US Family Travel Survey found that 88% of US families planned on whisking their kids away, while half of British parents are willing to pay a fine for holidaying during term time – what young people want is being taken increasingly seriously. If nothing else, that is obvious in White’s own work, which showcases the Gruffalo, CBeebies and Peppa Pig,
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
among other childhood favourites. Yet that is not the whole story. A Peppa Pig room is obviously aimed at children – but a property devoted to the bratwurst hardly needs to be. What has changed, suggests White, is the spectacular growth of social media and on-demand entertainment. Back in 1955, people could only really learn about Disney’s fairy tale hotel via leaflets or newspapers. Now, however, members of every fandom imaginable can easily gather online, and find even obscure hotels at a click of a button. Böbel’s experience is a case in point. His hotel may
be in rural Franconia, but he has welcomed curious guests from as far afield as Nigeria and China. Even more strikingly, the internet in all its power can birth new theme hotels from ones and zeros. Six months ago, ‘Squid Game’ was what lonely sailors did at night. Now, fans of the hit Korean drama can stay at a Singapore hotel based on the show. This mad rush to be different is telling in other ways. Global hospitality is expanding at outrageous rates. The Chinese city of Guangzhou, to give just one example, has a pipeline of 8,694 rooms – and operators need all the help they can get to stand out. And if you build a property expressly designed to lure a certain type of hobbyist, chances are they will come back for more. That is certainly apparent if you listen to hoteliers
themselves. Around a third of guests at Vliegtuighotel, a Dutch hotel set in a decommissioned Ilyushin-18 aircraft, said they are either returning or treating friends after enjoying a night in the cockpit themselves. Böbel agrees. “I think for the next 20, 50 years, from all over the world, people will come here,” he says. “This is my market.”
Kings of the castle Since 1068, Warwick Castle has stood sentinel over the towns and villages of the West Midlands.
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