Design is People — 166 Beds

I was so excited to stay at the new TWA Hotel, which opened in May at the JFK Airport in New York.

I read an article about the imminent opening that asked (I’m paraphrasing), “Who is this hotel for?” and thought, “ME!” I love hotels, am fascinated by airports, appreciate design, and romanticize those old airline ads (minus the sexist nonsense) in which people dressed up to fly, had excessive amounts of legroom and drank martinis served in real martini glasses.

So, when I had a semi-justifiable-if-you-squint-and-choose-to-go-along-with-it reason to book a night at the TWA Hotel in June, I went for it.

It didn’t go as planned. This can be attributed, in part, to the thunderstorms that diverted my flight to Chicago and got us in five hours late, robbing me of the chance to venture throughout the hotel before going to bed or swirling a martini in the cocktail lounge in Connie, a refurbished plane parked outside. It can also be attributed to a new hotel trying to secure its footing and not getting everything right.

But it is also the all too common tale of allowing good design to end at aesthetics.

The TWA Hotel — with the Erik Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center as its centerpiece — is beautiful. The lush red carpet in the hotel and concourse hallways is stunning. But — like Soylent Green — design is people. Good design reflects an awareness of how people behave, what people need, and what people want. It’s the entire reason I started 166Beds.com. It’s what I think about every time I walk into a hotel. It’s what thrills me about a hotel when they get it right.

So, as the TWA Hotel uses this initial period after their opening to learn and improve, this is my contribution to what I hope they will consider.

Be better at welcoming people who arrive at odd hours. You are an airport hotel. Flights get in late at night; flights get in early in the morning. Snow storms prevent people from leaving; thunderstorms prevent people from landing on time. It’s great that you allow people to book rooms for “day stays",” but there are other things you need to do as well.

Have someone — the valet? — outside to great customers 24 hours a day. When I arrived at 1 am, there was no one there and neither the cab driver nor I could determine where the front door was.

Contract with your vendors to keep at least one of the stands in the Food Hall open 24 hours a day AND/OR provide room service — 24 hours a day. Because of my flight delay, nothing being opened, and the lack of room service, I had a bag of Swedish Fish and a can of Pringles for dinner. Guests passing through will want the option of being able to relax in the privacy and quiet of their room before heading back out to the intensity of the airport. This is an imperative.

Train the front desk staff to think about how a customer who is showing up at 1 am might feel and how far a friendly and gracious welcome could go. At the very least, encourage them to reconsider the desire to tell a customer how bad THEIR day has been. And remind them to tell customers with suitcases that there’s a ramp to use versus struggling with the stairs while two staff members stare at you and provide no help.

Ensure you have the right staffing levels. I needed to call the front desk because there was no hot water in my room. It was obvious that there was one person answering the phones because the same person answered the phone each of the six times I called over the hour and a half it took for someone to address my problem. It made the retro TWA radio ads that sang to me about “the finest service you can get” — in place of a ring tone — a little too painfully ironic.

And when I went to The Sunken Lounge — the design centerpiece of your hotel — (at 12:30; it opens at 11:00 am) there were no visible employees, while the ratio of employees/customers was 6 to 1 at the coffee bar in the front lobby. I skipped both.

Let your staff know that, regardless of their role, they can contribute to making the guest happy about their stay. The two staff members who ignored me as I walked up the stairs with my bags may not have been bellmen, but they could have pitched in. The housecleaners whom I asked for help when I could not get help from the front desk may not have been responsible for my lack of hot water, but they could have found someone who was. If staff have a “that’s not my job” mindset this early on, you are going to be in a load of trouble. They should be encouraged — and rewarded — for adopting a mission-driven approach to their work.

Provide information in the room. Guests are handed a simple map of the hotel when you check in, but here’s no guide book for guests in the room. I needed to go online to check out how much I was going to need to spend on that bag of Swedish Fish and that can of Pringles and I needed to guess at which number to dial to reach the front room. In addition, the schtick of the hotel is its history and the opportunity to enjoy yourself onsite. Promote that by providing an in-room guide — analog or digital. Encourage people to explore the beautiful space you have created by telling them more about what they will find when they do.

There are a few more little things…

The heat was on in my room when I arrived in late June and, according to the thermometer it was 80 degrees. Include the thermometer in housecleaning’s checklist. (As well as assuring there are no dirty towels in the closet, which was just weird.)
Add another garbage pail; there was only one in the bathroom. And add a recycling bin. I know they didn’t recycle in 1962, but we do now. The LEED certification is impressive, but these are the basics.
Eliminate the “30 second rule” language from your mini bar — don’t tell people you’ll charge them for something even if they didn’t take it. It’s impersonal and distrustful.
Add a turntable and records — on brand — or even just a Bluetooth speaker in the room. Some of us prefer music to television.
Consider adding a postcard or two as an amenity in the room. (The Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn does this — and even offers to provide postage and mail it for guests.) People sent postcards from their travels in the 1960s and some of us still do. It’s free advertising. When the buzz about the hotel dies down, you’ll want it.

I’m not sure I’ll have another reason to stay at the TWA Hotel and it will be a risk that things will have improved by the time I do. But if their service can catch up to their aesthetics, I’d love to.

But remember, design is people.

My Stay: June 29, 2019