Luxury hotels are swapping glitz for experience, say AHEAD Asia awards judges
High-end hotels and resorts are moving away from “gold, marble and chandeliers” to offering guests unique experiences, AHEAD Asia jury members claim in this movie Dezeen produced for the hospitality awards scheme.
The AHEAD Asia awards 2017, which took place earlier this month at the Capitol Theatre in Singapore, celebrated the best in hospitality design and architecture across the continent.
“The judging panel follows a pretty rigorous process,” says architect and jury chair Khirstie Myles. “It’s not only design excellence, we’re also looking at financial viability and delivering end-to-end guest experience.”
One of the big winners of the night was Azuma Architects’ Hoshinoya, a newly-built 17-storey hotel in Tokyo, which won the Urban Hotel category as well as Best New Concept of the Year and the Asia Hotel Design of the Year award.
The hotel offers guests a modern take on the Japanese ryokan, a traditional type of rural inn.
“A ryokan is traditionally a rural retreat and I think it’s a very bold step to bring it into an urban environment and really embrace the spirit of the ryokan in fundamentally a high-rise building,” says designer and judge André Fu.
