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Three Cool Global Design Hotel Chains — A Design and Sustainability Comparison
How do three modern hotel brands — 25hours , CitizenM and RoomMate — measure up?
If I go to a resort, I might have an inherent desire to immerse myself in luxury. When I travel to cities, I am less inclined to choose the Usual Luxury Suspects and instead go for cool design hotels in varying price classes.
Design is deeply rooted in Danish culture. My kids have had design classes starting in third grade. But we all have design demands, either on the surface or deeper within. When I choose hotels, I primarily look for design. There are exceptions to the rule, though. Maybe I just need the closest damn hotel to that airport or train station because of an early morning start so I’ll find weird places to lay my head for seven hours. When I travel for work, hotels are often booked for me and usually the client wants to show off the best side of their city with a great hotel. But if I book for myself, design is as important to me as location.
There are so many amazing design-oriented hotels that have emerged over the past decade as a response to the cookie-cutter hotel chains that owned the market for decades. It’s an exciting time in hotel life and it keeps getting better.
But hey. While it can be fun to bounce around from one cool, local design pearl to another, sometimes… and this is odd to write after mentioning cookie-cutter hotel chains… it is kind of refreshing to find a modern hotel chain that delivers.
I have frequented three hotel brands that I keep returning to and that fulfill my personal desires for hotel design.
RoomMate Hotels
Room Mate was founded by a group of friends in Madrid who lamented the fact that there were no hotels that suited their needs when they travelled. They identified a central location and a no-nonsense approach as key elements. That could have ended up very differently if other people were tasked with creating hotels.
