Hotel Design Is Influencing Retailers

Hotels have been curating a personalized guest experience for years. Now retailers are following suit with more hospitality-inspired designs. To find out more about how hospitality and retail are colliding, we sat down with a Jackson Thilenius, principal at Retail Design Collaborative. Thilenius has worked on designs for Marriott and Hyatt to smaller boutique brands including Red Lion Hotels and Pacifica Hotels, and now he is seeing hotel design inform retail. Here, he tells us why the two asset classes are colliding, the trends shaping the industries and what his clients are requesting.

GlobeSt.com: Why are hospitality and retail colliding today?

Jackson Thilenius: Everything is colliding today! Retail in particular has been aggressively adopting hospitality standards to provide a more personalized experience to its customers. Taking cues from the hospitality industry, the retail sector is discovering that there is real value behind curating an authentic experience for their customers. If people enter a store, they crave a more personalized, interactive experience that represents their individuality. While online shopping has decimated many traditional retail models, the curated retail experience is definitely on the rise. We have enjoyed exploring with our clients what those experiences entail, and our designs are taking us to places we never could have anticipated. The maker-space is growing, and I believe the commodification of authenticity as it relates to unique interactions will dominate the future of retail and hospitality.