Expandable Rooms are flexible, multi-functional guest rooms that can adjust to match a guests’ needs in real time with dynamic furniture. The room features an Ori Cloud Bed that can be raised or lowered with the click of a button, adding valuable space to the room without requiring additional square footage.
We were looking for ways to create more dynamic and flexible rooms that provide more value to our guests when traveling, as well as more opportunity for our owners to create different or more room types without having to significantly change the floorplate of their hotel. We found Ori during our research phase and partnered with them to help us solve this challenge.
While Ori has partnered with more than 100 multifamily developers on projects, Marriott International is Ori’s first and only hospitality partner.
We created these rooms to offer more flexibility and space to our guests within an existing room footprint to meet their needs.
For example, you can take a double Queen room, and make it a suite with a living space with the Cloud bed.
A business traveler can raise the bed to avoid having it in the background of video calls, or a family can raise it for their children to have more space to play while getting ready for the day.
The room is also great for blended travel or bleisure, as the room offers spacefor both work and rest.
From a business and development perspective, these rooms will allow brandsto offer even more room types within their existing floorplate. Owners can offer 25% more rooms in the same floorplate.
We have six pilot hotels: Marriott Bethesda Downtown at Marriott HQ, TownePlace Suites Nashville Downtown/Capitol District, Washington Marriott at Metro Center, Westin Denver Downtown, Westin Seattle and TownePlace Suites Columbia West/Lexington.
These rooms will serve as a pilot test where we’ll gather feedback from guests, associates and owners who interact with and stay in the rooms and determine next steps from there.
The frequency of use data we’ve gathered so far show these dynamic beds are used more frequently than a murphy bed. We attribute this to the fact that the bed is easier to use, it doesn’t need to be made to be put away, and it integrates into a guest's daily life easily with the push of a button. The bed can also provide a sounder sleep with a traditional mattress unlike a sleeper sofa.
The bed can be easily lowered or raised manually, so you can always go to bed or move the bed out of the way.
Ori furniture undergoes an independent third party safety certification process with UL, which also certifies a lot of the home appliances that you're familiar with. If the bed comes down and hits an obstruction, it will stop and retract. If you are on the bed while you're trying to move the system, the system will not move.
As this is a pilot, accommodations will be considered during the test phase.
The bed will not lift if something 20 lbs or heavier is on top of it.
Our hotels feature a dynamic pricing model, so pricing will continue to fluctuate based on hotel demand and be unique to each individual property.
The furniture will be treated like all the other furniture in the room.
Currently, Expandable Rooms arethe bed is being offered as an option when guests check-in if one is it’s available. The rooms will be added to the websiteas bookable options in the coming weeks.
Guests can also call ahead of time to request a room.
Guests are sent a survey when they check-in.