Hospitality Design - November 2009 - 80

on site jody turner Photos by Dietmar Tollerian R T: Or even to the point of a walk on the High Line, which is kind of the recommended new New And I have a friend who is creating an eco resort in India that is going to be a living example of how to live eco. You go, and you stay there, and you learn how to live eco in your life. other for ideas on how to bring inspiration to the table. So we’re inspiration generators now, brands and hotels, and it becomes a tiered sort of thing. Well, then, how do you offer this? And how do you connect? What’s your engagement point? Those become the important conversations. So if we’re saying that it’s a multidimensional experience, meaning that some people will be coming to a hotel to have another cultural experience that’s local, the concierge is now a pivotal person in a hotel because they have to be really up on what’s good locally. And on the multidimensional levels, from luxury to meaning. York promenade. RT: So destination resorts are becoming much more dimensional. It also needs to have context and a component of education, or interaction, or something that is transformative. J T: Yes. The reason the Standard is so brilliant is because it gives unique you a really York New J T: Yes. Multidimensional means that it has to be transformative, informative, experiential. experience. So this is multidimensional. It’s unique in that it feels like you’re floating above the city with a lot of space around you. So there’s a lot of bright light and a lot of space. No. 1, that’s unique in New York. No. 2, it has driven a certain sort of excitement for the area, so now we have bridge and tunnel people clashing with high-end people. They’re all coming together in that spot and that mash up is just crazy. Crazy goodness, crazy badness. It’s just really interesting. Plus, the High Line is such a great concept of old and new. The Standard has supported the whole area to change. That’s what people are looking for, a hotel concept that is transformational to the people that attend, and to the people that are living nearby. That’s profound. That’s kind of cool, hip, and neat. But it also can be something like my friend who went to work on a farm for a staycation—well, not a staycation, a ‘meaning’ vacation, where she worked on a farm in Italy to learn how to do sustainable bio-farming. It’s a vacation for two weeks where she learned a skill, and also contributed. R T: So that’s really informing destination resorts. The new term ‘eco resort’ is really a kind of destination resort. And the adventure resort? J T: Adventure resorts are what I call ‘edutainment.’ We are entertaining ourselves with it. RT: I love that word. It’s like my ‘evocatecture.’ J T: Yes, that’s great. Yes, ‘edutainment.’ Because there are so many worries in the world, because things are shifting, we are now looking for solution-driven components, along with transformational. We want to know that our brands, and our hotels, and everything we’re engaged in bring something to evolve us and grow us. This could be either as a better business person, which means you could have all sorts of different lectures and conferences, or, as a better emotional person, to infuse my emotional intelligence. Also to increase my social skills, and to be in the coolest of the cool places, and to be able to say, I was there. I can twitter about it. That makes me socially viable. RT: What does ‘meaning’ mean for the concierge? J T: I call it grassroots influence, the places where you can go to get real local, real cultural, real Mexican food, if that’s what’s real in that area. Or if it’s real in terms of the sort of social innovations that are happening in this area. Perhaps it’s a coffee house that has fair trade coffee, or locally owned, locally made. Or perhaps it’s a museum that’s showing remanufactured or reused products that give you inspiration for living your life differently. In that way, the concierge is the pivotal inspirational person who can help you access transformational experiences. hospitalitydesign www.hdmag.com Photo courtesy of the City of New York Right: A rendering of the High Line, a 1.45-mile-long section of New York’s inactive elevated freight railroad on the West Side that was recently redesigned as a public park by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Below, left to right: Two views of the dasparkhotel in Ottensheim, Austria, made from recycled drain pipes.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - November 2009