Platform beds with crisp white sheets and taupe coverlets; 32-inch flat-screen TVs; bright colors on the walls and mod furnishings that maximize space. No, it's not the latest boutique hotel. It's the new look of Motel 6.
That's right. Over the past year or so, motel chains like Super 8 and Red Roof Inn have been getting a makeover. Not unlike the bedding wars initiated by Starwood Hotels & Resorts in the late '90s, motels have been upgrading their interiors, doing away with those dreadful floral bedspreads and, in many cases, adding amenities that rival those of more upscale properties.
Red Roof Inn, based in Columbus, Ohio, is adding spa-inspired walk-in showers with rain-flow shower heads and pillow-top mattress pads as part of what it's calling a Next Generation redesign. Wyndham Hotel Group's Super 8 chain, which added curved shower rods, granite countertops and hair dryers to its previously bare-bones bathrooms a couple of years ago, is taking it up a notch by replacing bedding and adding nicer vanities in the bathrooms.
Holiday Inn is updating everything from its lobbies to its logo (formerly written out in cursive, it has been edited down to a cleaner, modern "H"). It even has created a piped-in signature scent that isn't a byproduct of a highly chlorinated pool. The smell is citrus and white tea, with subtle undercurrents of perilla leaf, woods and herbs.
Redesigns earn high praise
The budget hotel segment was due for a design overhaul as the discrepancy between economy hotels still stuck in the floral bedspread mode and more upscale, fashion-forward newcomers, like NYLO Hotels and Starwood's Aloft brand, grew. And though none of the upgrades are plush by any means, the extent of the renovations and redesigns, which focus on minimalist chic, has been surprising guests and style arbiters alike.
In February, for example, Motel 6, which hired the design firm Priestmangoode of London to facilitate its transformation, took Travel & Leisure magazine's 2010 design award for Best Large Hotel for its "smart, hip, and of the moment" Phoenix design, as the chain calls the new look.
Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, owned by InterContinental Hotels Group, is investing $1 billion across more than 3,200 hotels to refresh the brands and is the farthest along in its overhaul. About 2,000 hotels have been renovated since October 2007 when the company first announced the initiative, decluttering reception desks of the usual solicitations, adding powerful shower heads, curved shower rods and upgraded bedding. Motel 6, operated by Accor Worldwide, which unveiled its Phoenix design last May, has revamped more than 50 of its 1,000 North American locations. Red Roof Inn, which has 350 locations nationwide and 50 hotels in the pipeline, plans to build 17 or so based on the Next Generation prototype.
