The hospitality industry has been hit hard by COVID-19, but one thing hotels and restaurants excel at is tackling challenging situations creatively. Here are seven of the most creative ways hotels are adapting and embracing a post-pandemic world.
We’re all familiar with wine sommeliers (and even water sommeliers), but Pier One Sydney Harbour is offering something entirely new – access to a hand sanitiser sommelier on arrival. In a thoughtful and inventive twist on a traditional sommelier, a selection of hand sanitisers from some of Australia’s local alcohol brands (including Archie Rose Distilling Co.) is now available to guests and diners.
L’hotel Island South in Hong Kong has introduced a fully autonomous meal delivery robot, designed to provide safe in-room dining to hotel guests. L’hotel Island South staff place food and beverages inside the compartment with an integrated locking system and touchscreen interface and then the robot (named “GENIE”) makes its way to the hotel room, letting you know your meal has arrived by announcing, “Hello! You have a delivery!”
You could be forgiven for doing a double take when walking into the Ramada by Wyndham Singapore Zhongshan Park. Why? Because dotted throughout the public seating areas are ‘social distancing pandas’; a cute but effective way to remind and encourage guests to keep their distance.
The Inn at Little Washington in Virginia boasts gorgeous 23-room accommodation and a three-Michelin star restaurant that takes in mountain views, a farm and even a chicken coop complete with a crystal chandelier. With restrictions on capacity, empty tables at the restaurant’s grand dining room are theatrically dressed with mannequins made by local theatre companies, so you’ll never feel like you’re dining alone.
It might not be the first location that springs to mind when you think about dining in a boutique hotel, but guests at The Bell in East Sussex are loving eating in their potting sheds. Corrugated iron pods, reminiscent of allotment sheds, provide funky dining rooms for groups of four to six people that look out onto the garden and BBQ area.
Forgot your toothbrush? If you’re staying at Marriott’s Norfolk Waterside hotel in Virginia, you’ll need to call on MarriBot – a waist-high autonomous robot that can deliver coffee, toothbrushes and more to guests in their rooms in order to limit in-person human interaction.
Hawaii’s new $5,000 a night luxury hotel, ESPACIO in Waikiki is embracing the new normal by allowing non-guests to have private dinners on its rooftop infinity pool deck or in its expansive 2,250 square-foot suites. Each of the hotel’s nine suites occupies a private floor and comes with its own elevator, jacuzzi-clad balcony and dry sauna.
