With staycations set to decline, cabin-based hospitality must evolve to stay relevant in a post-pandemic world and become a design typology of its own.
With recent reports pointing to the hotel market’s long-awaited post-COVID bounce-back, we are beginning to see some of the pandemic’s defining hospitality design trends fall away. Streetside dining was the first to go, with the boom in hypoallergenic surfaces and completely-contactless-everything fading soon after. Now, with international travel back in full swing and a global cost-of-living crisis causing fuel prices to skyrocket, it could be the turn of the humble staycation – perhaps the brightest star from the disruption – to have a decline of its own.
Lockdown-era staycations saw guests seeking out alternative modes of hospitality providing social distance, comfortable isolation and natural settings away from the claustrophobia at home. With few of these ideals on offer in the traditional all-under-one-roof hotel, there was a parallel surge of cabin-based hotels occupying smaller, more diffuse footprints than their monolithic cousins, channelling a very different kind of experience. But will guests continue to buy in now that regular hotel programming is largely resumed?
For a space that has remained fairly consistent in its aesthetic and function over the years, this moment in the spotlight has raised a question: stick to the rural Walden-style guns, enjoy the bump in occupancy, or innovate and explore the potential of this environment in a post-pandemic market. Now, as the first wave of new cabin developments to emerge from this period come online, the results are diverse but nonetheless highlight a remarkable willing to change.
Arcana is a cluster of 26-sq-m cabins in the Ontario wilderness designed by Leckie Studio.
Upping sticks
One of the key changes has been the degree to which these spaces can flexibly adapt to shifting demand. For hospitality start-up MoLiving, cabin space is at the heart of a nomadic experience comprising prefabricated units that can be used to extend an existing hotel’s key count, or follow guests to locations that lack hospitality infrastructure. The modular interiors are adaptable with interchangeable components, and the low-impact solar-powered footprint has seen the cabins deployed at green-conscious hotels like Hudson Valley’s energy positive Hurley House as a complementary cabin experience.
Designers are also doubling down on the core cabin values of rural isolation and connection with nature. At Arcana – a cluster of cabins in the Ontario wilderness designed by Leckie Studio – the structures have been specifically developed to enhance the relationship between guest and landscape. ‘All aspects of the Arcana experience are designed intentionally to encourage guests to connect both inward and outward,’ says Michael Leckie, the studio’s founder. ‘The concept of immersion was at the forefront of the design process and led the team to create structures that camouflaged themselves invisibly into the natural environment.’
Beyond rural roots, cabins are also being translated into increasingly urban territories as a solution for the rising cost of city space. Architect Sigurd Larsen has recently adapted the signature cabin format of boutique hospitality brand Raus for a limited run in Berlin’s Wehrmuehle park. The sleek black timber cabin is decidedly metropolitan in its aesthetic, containing a luxury guestroom of just 18 sq-m. Expect to see more of these standalone cabin-inspired micro-hotel concepts in city markets as brands search out less costly and low-committal forms of built environment that can still be billed as luxury experience.
Clad in reflective steel, the Arcana cabins merge seamlessly with their forest surroundings.
Free solo
As the evolution of cabin design continues to set out a new purpose and aesthetic vocabulary for the medium, one movement designers should consider is the burgeoning solo-travel market. Small scale cabin hospitality is more naturally suited than any other sector to host one-person parties, and with a new wave of digital nomads and workcations emerging during a period of pent-up adventure travel demand, cabins will have an opportunity to carve out a space of their own in this lucrative niche.
A new report by Solo Traveller found that of 76 per cent of respondents are planning to travel alone in the near future, regardless of age, gender or nationality. Meanwhile, luxury travel company Cox & Kings found solo travel to be the second most popular category for post-lockdown trips. ‘Most popular was couples, then travelling by yourself – ahead of families or travelling with friends,’ Sue Livey, the company’s senior commercial manager, tells Travel Weekly. ‘That shows the market is very, very robust.’
There are currently few hotels or hospitality brands that cater specifically and intentionally to lone guests, and fewer still that have truly considered how these travellers might interact differently with hospitality space. Capturing the interest of this growing market could be a way to move beyond a reliance on staycations and thrive as part of the new hospitality landscape increasingly receptive to small-scale or off-grid experiences.
