Motel 6 Makeover
Keeping The Light On In Style
Motel 6 is the largest corporate-owned hotel chain on the North American continent. They specialize in ultra-low budget hotel rooms with gas station styling to match. That’s about to change next year when the corporation will begin offering a new design concept to its franchise owners.
London-based design firm, Priestman Goode, was hired to come up with a more appealing boutique look. This follows in the wake of other budget hotels trying the same concept, such as Indigo, a chain owned by Holiday Inn.
The new look is available in several color schemes that rely on color blocks and the creative use of space to create a crisp, modern look. Most of the room’s elements do double duty, such as the entertainment unit with storage behind it. Likewise, vomit-proof patterned carpet is gone – replaced by wood-veneered floors. They’re much easier to clean and look a hell of a lot nicer.
Those buzzing fluorescent lights (you know – the one above the bed with the yellowed plastic cover clinging precariously to the wall) are also gone, having been replaced with more energy efficient, skin-tone friendly ambient lights.
All of which begs the question: Why can’t all hotels look like this?
Really! Why is it harder to create a room like this than the typical Colonial style Sheraton? My answer is that, barring clients who’ve undergone cryogenic freezing, there is no excuse. On the other hand, perhaps I’m living in my own private Idaho and think this is great, while most Americans would see this room and wonder where the quilted floral bedspread went.
Help me out here.
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12 Responses to “Motel 6 Makeover”
Avatars are randomly assigned unless you get your own
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Posted by Jennifer on July 21st, 2008 at 5:43 pm
You are one smart girl and pegged the problem exactly. It seems to be that to get the midrange to embrace the modern they have to be convinced there’s a market for it first.
This requires further investigation.
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Posted by misterarthur on July 21st, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I’m only surprised that it took so long. As a many times too many hotel room stayer, I can’t understand how poorly most rooms are designed – price often doesn’t seem to enter into it. I’m a business traveler. I have pretty simple needs. Clean, bright, clean. (Did I say clean?) I think (I’m not an expert) that the new Motel 6 design, by virtue of its clean design, also says clean in the physical sense. Motel 6′s new design says and does so much more than cheesy slogans and invented “brand differentiators”. Bronx Elf is right, too. That same IKEA –> very expensive gap clearly is something I”d try and fix if I were in the furniture business…
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Posted by misterarthur on July 21st, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Forgot to add: There’s one ominous note in Jennifer’s post: “offering a new design concept to franchise owners”. That means it’ll be hit and miss if you get one of the new designs or one of the old ones.
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Posted by bronxelf on July 21st, 2008 at 8:15 pm
The thing about the hospitality industry is that budget and midrange hotels are all about giving people “a home-like” environment, only (theoretically) cleaner.
When there *is* no modern aesthetic in the midrange, you wind up with a lot of hotels going with what most people seem to have- transitional/traditional spaces. I personally hate them, but I understand why it exists in the market. The lack of midrange options makes it hard to sell a hotel on buying into the aesthetic.
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Posted by misterarthur on July 22nd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I hate them too, Elf. The thing is, the ‘transitional’ design in most hotels is super dated…(I think)
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Posted by bronxelf on July 22nd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I think that transitional is by its nature, dated. It’s really a refusal to really make a call one way or the other. You’ll notice that transitional never really updates itself. It’s always in the same time period limbo it always has been. It’s a firmly neutral sort of look- nothing stands out too much. It’s “resellable”.
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Posted by Jay Maynard on July 23rd, 2008 at 4:31 am
I travel for a living. When I’m working hard, I spend about three times as many nights away from home as I do at home. That means that I want my hotels to be as close to being home as I can manage.
My favorite choice, when I can manage it, is Residence Inn by Marriott. Extra space, a kitchen (or something approaching it), and usually a separate bedroom where I can close the door and shut out more light are all major advantages. However, if they went to a modern, high-design look, like the pictures above, I’d be turned off. How many people who aren’t designers have that kind of thing in their homes?
They do use good quality solid wood furniture that I wouldn’t mind having in my home. I can’t say the same for the stuff in the picture.
Motel 6 does need to update their properties (or at least did as of four years ago, the last time I was in one), but I sure hope that high design like that doesn’t become the hotel standard.
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Posted by Furniture project part 6.2: the second side of the case. « Damned Good Design on July 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
[...] had written a post about (of all things) Motel 6, and their proposed new look. Knowing that I love, love, love hospitality design (really, it’s my second favorite design [...]
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Posted by misterarthur on July 23rd, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Jay, I travel all the time, too. (Not as much as you, but plenty). I take your point. But most of my trips are overnight (or possibly two nights), so the living room-like features of the Residence Inns aren’t that important to me. That said, I don’t think every chain needs to follow the same path. I’d like to have a choice in decor, since most are so alike. Also, (and please correct me if I’m wrong) the biggest growth is in ’boutique’ style hotels, which more often than not, are more modern than traditional in style.
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Posted by chikwendu on August 5th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Good point of view, but still, I can’t agree
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Posted by roger foster on April 12th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
All budget hotels are going for this generic corporate look bright colours hard chairs sleek bathrooms but nothing like an appealing guest room . Watch these rooms date faster than you have ever seen previously . Why doesn’t some design a timeless room that has real appeal . Jokes about Ikea really are true with these designs and as with Ikea won’t last the test of time Lets use some materials that show style without having to put up with” plastic wood” on the floor. They may be vomit proof but who are we building these rooms for the guests or the owners or the pigs who vomit?
Aww… My second favorite design topic. You shouldn’t have. :D
Fundamentally, what I think has happened in the industry is a perception problem.
Let’s forget hospitality for a second. Let’s talk about furniture. Because let’s face it- that’s what hotel rooms are filled with. There’s a serious industry gap in modern furniture. You have Ikea, and you have *really* super expensive stuff, which is great, but really super expensive. There’s a vast midrange that is not being served effectively. What has taken that midrange over are more transitional or traditional styles. And so too, with the hospitality industry. It does not surprise me that motel 6, a super budget chain, has hopped on this bandwagon. It does not surprise me when high end boutique hotels do it too(hell, I count on it.). But there’s a significant lack of *midrange* options that have embraced this aesthetic. Midrange hotels have a problem- go too high end, and they outprice themselves. Go too low end, and they worry that people start making Ikea jokes.
Hospitality tends to mirror larger trends on a macro scale. You’ll start seeing more modern midrange options when there are more modern midrange *choices* for furniture in the industry as a whole.