BDNY 2023 Recap
If you’re planning a hotel project, you want your design and procurement provider to be up-to-date on the latest design and market trends. When they meet and connect with others in the marketplace, they create relationships and gain valuable insights that ultimately benefit your hotel—and your bottom line.
Attending conferences such as BDNY keeps our ideas at Innvision fresh and allows us to give our clients our best. As we see it, this is an important part of why hoteliers hire us: to be at the forefront of new and innovative products and designs.
This year, the Innvision team attended the annual BDNY (Boutique Design New York) Conference, which “Connects boutique hospitality brands and designers with exceptional vendors, insider experiences, and hospitality products not found anywhere else.” This includes “Bringing designers, architects, purchasing agents, hoteliers, owners, and developers together with inventive manufacturers of design elements for hospitality interiors in a highly curated experience.”
In this post, you’ll learn our takeaways from the event and what we plan to bring back to our clients and their projects.
Our Takeaways from the BDNY Conference
Our team attended a breakout session with a panel of speakers discussing the topic of blurred lines between lifestyle, boutique, and luxury hotel brands. Trends are shifting, and price point no longer determines the expectations for a guest experience.
Today, guests seek a unique and memorable experience, whether staying in a select-service or full-service luxury brand. The pillars that once defined a luxury experience have become subjective to each targeted market and its guests.
We concluded that we, as designers, must understand this shift and work with hotel owners and brands to define this experience and meet this need in any given market.
A seminar that stood out was one with a small group of designers who shared their experiences and perspectives when things didn’t go as planned. It was a very down-to-earth conversation about pivoting in stressful situations that every hospitality designer could relate to and learn from.
Continued Trends from BDNY 2023
Our team saw a continuation of some past trends at the show, including overscaled wallcovering patterns, tambour wood paneling, mixed material architectural finishes, and a heavy emphasis on texture.
Another continued trend is the shift to be outdoors, so outdoor furniture manufacturers ramped up their presence at BDNY. We even saw one or two new outdoor furniture vendors we hadn’t seen before! Outdoor areas of a hotel are no longer just an afterthought, but instead are now a viable part of the guest’s stay. With that dynamic in mind, hoteliers are bringing the indoor living room experience to the outdoors with a fun and sometimes playful vibe.
Solar and battery-powered lanterns and lamps stole the show to bring a soft ambiance to outdoor vignettes in various shapes.
New Trends from BDNY 2023
With this shift to the outdoors, materials have become more durable to withstand harsh conditions and increased wear. Many outdoor furniture manufacturers are using faux wood to reduce necessary maintenance and upkeep, which natural wood often requires.
One more trend we noted in outdoor furniture is that these vendors are incorporating side tables to extend sofa seating for a functional and modern aesthetic outdoors.
Another new trend is smooth, rounded corners to soften sharp angles. Furniture manufacturers have mastered this look in chair and table frames and on corners of nightstands and headboards.
Architectural lighting, once incorporated in only higher-end properties, is now being implemented in casegoods and millwork across all brand hierarchies. Manufacturers have found ways to create a smaller fixture footprint to conceal lights in a small space for more streamlined and integrated illumination.
We also saw some beautiful architectural panel systems shown in wood, metal, and resin – even one that was a knotted tied rope system!
At Innvision, we bring back our renewed knowledge of current industry trends from the BDNY Conference to benefit our clients and their projects. We are also excited to introduce our clients to some new vendors and products from the show! To start your next hotel project, contact us today!
