by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 3:49 PM ET, Mon December 3, 2018
Watch out Airbnb, a new hospitality industry disruptor may be on its way.
Hotelier Ian Schrager said during Bloomberg's Year Ahead: Luxury conference in New York City last week that he believes co-living spaces are poised to be the next big thing.
"Communal living is blurring the distinction between residential and hotels," said Schrager, according to Bloomberg.
Schrager, who also co-founded Studio 54, told those in attendance that they need look no further than millennial buying statistics for evidence of his prediction. The famed hotelier said there's been growth in co-living, which involves residents buying into furnished, semi-serviced apartments.
All of this, Schrager said, ties back to a trend he's been seeing for at least four decades, which is that of gathering various people together for a "semi-democratic group experience."
"At Studio 54 you had regular people next to celebrities. Everyone was there to have a good time. Clubs and hotels can bring high art to the regular people …and take the pretension out of art," Schrager said.
At the same conference, Suzanne Cohen, Marriott's vice president for luxury brands in the Americas, talked about how Marriott is relying on data, including information from social media, to learn about and expand experiential offerings that guests appreciate.
"If they post on Facebook or Instagram about a special occasion, we feed that information to our hotels," said Cohen. Offline, St. Regis, W, Ritz Carlton employees are looking for clues; housekeepers will notice if guests love the towels or they don't like chocolate and personalize their stay while they are there, she said, with all this ultimately being logged for future stays. "We are collecting data by the minute."
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