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Bill Barnett, managing director of C9 Hotelworks Company, reflects on the last few months and how the pandemic has fostered innovation.
Help. I’m stuck in an industry that is headed for a head-on collision in a whacked out, amped up vehicle that is absolutely out of control. Am I going to die? Dunno. Maybe. Stay tuned and welcome to my Sunday morning dilemma. I’m three robust coffees in the tank, fully caffeinated and a bit edgy.
Human nature has a strong fatal attraction with disaster. Just flick on the Discovery Channel and tune into air crashes, shark attacks, solo life or death survival epics, escaping jails in faraway places. We just can’t get away from our inner demons. Hollywood understands our dark side, from Zombies, satanic dreams to dark angels of death. We fear it, yet, can’t wander far from the steady flame of impending catastrophe.
For hoteliers we now have our worst nightmare: Covid-19 and the malaise of pandemic fever that is in danger of killing off our natural instinct of edging away from that abyss of pandemonium. Yet, what the current crisis is teaching some is the arcane art of rethinking our business model and reimagination. More to the point, 2020 is the year of mindbending.
The sudden new age of travel has dawned with the painfully slow return of tripping outside our homes. Social distancing, the fear factor and rethinking our actions look to be with us for a long time, much like the post-9/11 era of taking off our shoes at airports. Over the past decade of travel excess, low-cost airlines and the enlightenment of the smartphone, the thought process of local and international travel almost become a non-thinking exercise or spur of the moment idea that led to a nearby airport or a hotel in a distant place. The dangerous mind has suddenly returned to our life stage and travel has become a thoughtful choice.
It’s an interesting time to reimagine what the new art of travel escape will be? Modern Houdini’s are likely to view space, nature and smaller footprints as those first baby steps in our return to adventuring outside. Getting outside the box has never been more important.
One of the most amazing outcomes of the current crisis has been the sparks of ideas from a series of hospitality re-invention virtual events I’ve been co-hosting. Be it glamping as the new camping with inspirational innovators like Escape Nomad’s Anneke van Waesberghe who lives in a tent by a river in Bali’s stunning Ubud, Luca Franco of Luxury Frontiers and Nomadic Resorts’ Louis Thompson. The virtual event on glamping can be viewed here.
Another real source of inspiration is the farm-to-table movement and seeing hotels take on a sensible local sense of place. Talking to leading characters like former Michelin chef James Noble who is taking up full-time farming in Chiang Mai Thailand, or Jason Friedman’s slant that has luxury resorts flocking to the outdoors for nature-based-experiences. The virtual event on farm-to-table can be viewed here.
Despite my fear and loathing of Covid-19, the possible positive outcome has become the prolific understanding of the opportunity of change in the hospitality industry. Of pivoting, reinvention and disruption that has started the spark of igniting our survival instinct. No, it’s not about this ignominious term coined ‘the new normal’ – it’s about shedding our skins and evolving versus just remaining in our sad empty boxes and becoming an industry that is waiting to die.
My advice today is that despite the darkness, it’s time for mindbending and a new journey out into the strange new world of the unknown, one step at a time.
