COVID-19 Re-Design Strategy
1. Redesigning your operations and maximize seating under new social distancing rules.
2. Looking within the building footprint itself to investigate different types of seating options to safely add density back in
3. Designing clear signage on display to explain new protocols and manage the flow of people and sightlines between kitchen and dining, which can help build trust with customers.
4. Extending the barrier between indoor and outdoor seating by opening doors and occupying proximate outdoor space, although this requires some changes at the policy level, and may mean creating more space for pedestrians to allow restaurants to occupy spaces like the sidewalk and parking lots for seating.
5. A mobile ordering solution that enables customers to place orders and pay for them on their own devices without having to download an app or to register, often a turnoff for customers that can cause delays in ordering.
6. Investing in Wi5 hospitality businesses can serve their customers more quickly and easily, removing queues at the till or bar, and eliminating delays caused by staff manually taking orders and payments.
7. Focusing on outdoor seating, and invest in heating/cooling and waterproofing.
8. Managing Hotels space and services and the added challenge of managing guests and room turnarounds to allow for any COVID-related cleaning and hygiene regulations.
9. Reinventing of the housekeeping role, and accountabilities by making intelligent adjustments to the mechanics of housekeeping in rooms. The speed of the room turnaround is as important as the quality of the work undertaken. Where housekeeping shifts clash with new arrivals and checkouts, shift hours could be adjusted on a flexible daily basis rather than a weekly roster. Incentives, such as free coffee or soft drinks in a comfortable lounge could encourage customers to adhere to check out times.
10. Social distancing is an area that will be explored as part of how we move into recovery.
11. Pulling up in a car and having a valet take your car and park it in the hotel garage—that’ll have to change. I don’t think people would want that to happen if we still have to maintain distances.
12. Checking in by adopting, remote check-in or self-check-in from kiosks and using direct-to-room technology where you pre-check-in and use your phone to unlock a door. Where you can just bypass the receptionist and dealing with a front desk.
13. Design shift into cleanability and the things that are easy to clean, and you can tell that it’s been cleaned. That’s both in the hotel room and in the public area.
14. Cleaning public areas so that when guests are there, they usually do in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep and no one sees people, staff out there with spray bottles and rags. Show that they’re cleaning everything with antimicrobial materials and surfaces. (that’s been very prevalent in hospital design, healthcare design, for a long time.) There are chemically treated fabrics and floor finishes and wall finishes that are used in hospitals that may be considered for hospitality to give a guest sort of a higher level of confidence that there aren’t viruses sitting on a counter in their guest room.