Ep. 48: The future of hotel design, with Rebecca Weinstein

Hotels

Aug 24

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At the start of summer, I was asked to moderate a room on Clubhouse to celebrate New York’s reopening. New York City had begun buzzing again, with influencers taking to the streets, businessmen hosting business lunches, and a resurgence of hotel and restaurant development.

The panel was made up of hoteliers, designers, restauranteurs, chefs, content creators, and vendors in the hospitality space. Rebecca Weinstein was one of those panelists.

At the time, she and I were both days out from our time in Hawaii, and out of all the islands and all the places to stay, we’d been staying in the same place—Alohilani Resort—right on Waikiki Beach. We had similar tastes to say the least, and I’m so excited to have Rebecca join the show today.

Rebecca Weinstein is the Director of Design at Highgate, a hospitality investment and management company, and a true innovator in the industry. Highgate is known for developing bespoke hotel brands, predicting trends, and running hotels effectively.

With over 15 years of experience working as an Interior Designer, Rebecca has worked from concept through implementation, domestically and internationally, to create one-of-a-kind hotels, brands, and guest experiences.

Today, we’ll hear more of Rebecca’s story, then we’ll talk about New York’s reopening and Highgate’s hotel projects. We’ll also get Rebecca’s take on hospitality, design, and travel in the post-pandemic era.

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I really enjoyed my conversation with Rebecca. My key takeaways were:

1. Even in the midst of uncertainty, it’s possible to move the needle forward when it comes to hotel development projects. Highgate is betting on human behavior. Rather than making wholesale changes to design, they’re diversifying in different ways—like the home share model they’re developing called Sentral, which is built more for a resident than a guest. Likewise, they’ve expanded beyond compressed cities like New York and Miami, with acquisitions and future plans from Arizona to Alaska.

2. Next, I loved how the conversation revealed two polar-opposite trends in travel. On the one hand, we have hotels and restaurants that have pivoted to offer limited services during the pandemic—for safety reasons or due to staffing issues or a combination of the two. While some guests continue to seek out these limited, touchless, contactless experiences, on the other hand, we have hoards of travelers looking to recoup their lost vacation plans—they’re going big, planning bucket list trips, and sparing no expense. According to Rebecca, elevated experiences are on the rise, even among business travelers. She believes they’ll travel less frequently, but go big when they do.

3. Finally, we touched on pandemic silver linings, including the paradox of working from home, yet feeling more connected to a team thanks to virtual meetings, and making the actual face time we have, really count. Rebecca also talked about leaning into the pandemic-accelerated trend of outdoor dining. She described doubling down on outdoor space in a project she has currently in the works, in San Francisco.

When it comes to post-pandemic life, if we can really call it that—another big take away is not taking things for granted. Taking advantage of work from home life, tuning into guests wants, needs, and desires when it comes to travel, and responding in ways that really meet this moment.

As always, keep sharing your stories.