“Designing Hospitality for Tomorrow: The Asian Perspective“, an international hotel design forum curated and hosted by iN Design Lab, concluded at the Commercial Space Innovation Forum Zone (Hall 10, Booth C81) of the Shenzhen World Exhibition & Convention Center.
The forum brought together design professionals from Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. Drawing on their own cultural backgrounds, design philosophies and market experience, they shared views on hospitality trends, cultural character, guest experience and creative thinking.
As travel and hospitality continue to grow across Asia, the role of hotel design keeps shifting. Earlier thinking centred on spatial aesthetics, functional planning and hardware. Today’s approach gives more weight to cultural identity, brand personality, lifestyle and emotional experience. Two questions ran through the day: How to balance international hotel standards with local culture？How to shape a stay that guests remember？
Curated by iN Design Lab founder iko iN, the forum took “The New Hospitality Landscape in Asia” as its theme and brought together three designers from different backgrounds.
Luu Viet Thang, founder of Vietnamese furniture brand Viet Furniture and a doctor of architecture, presented “Designing with Identity: Local Culture, Global Hospitality”. He looked at how deep-rooted regional culture and architectural language can be translated into the spatial vocabulary of contemporary international hotels.
Tul Lekutai, founder and creative director of Thai studio Deco Moda Studio, spoke on “Beyond a Beautiful Hotel: Designing Experiences Guests Remember”. Starting from atmosphere, design narrative and how guests use a space, he considered how a hotel can move past visual appeal and leave an emotional impression.
Elaine Yee, founder and director of Malaysian design studio DBI Concept Sdn Bhd, shared “What’s Next for Hotel Design? From Lifestyle to Experience”. Her talk focused on travellers’ fast-changing needs and the influence of experience-led thinking on the interiors of a new generation of hotels.
From Aesthetics to Experience
Hotel design has long moved past room layouts, decorative styles and hardware specifications. It now works as a medium for brand positioning, cultural identity and guest experience.
Asia’s markets bring distinct cultural heritage, living habits and architectural traditions, and each supplies rich material for designers. Several questions remain open: how to keep regional character while meeting the needs of international guests, how to build a recognisable brand identity through spatial storytelling, and how to combine aesthetics, function and commercial value.
By putting perspectives from different countries side by side, the forum showed the breadth of Asian hotel design and the creative potential that culture and innovation bring to it.
Connecting Asia Through Design
As curator and host, iN Design Lab aims to offer a platform for professional knowledge sharing, and works to build links among designers, architects, brands and industry representatives across Asia.
Since 2003, iN Publishers has built media experience, industry resources and a professional network in interior design and the home sector. iN Design Lab draws on that foundation to run exhibitions, industry forums, professional events and cross-border collaborations. The Shenzhen forum marks another step in expanding its international exchange platform.
By connecting design professionals across countries, iN Design Lab hopes to give Asia’s design community more room to share experience, exchange ideas and explore partnerships, and to bring Asian design a stronger presence on the world stage.
The Asian Perspective
No single style defines Asian design. Each country’s culture, lifestyle, market conditions and design thinking add to a varied and layered whole.
As the global hotel and tourism industries keep evolving, cross-cultural exchange sparks fresh ideas and helps professionals understand different markets and their trajectories. With this year’s forum complete, iN Design Lab will continue to use its platform to support exchange across regions, cultures and disciplines, and to give the diversity of Asian design a wider audience.
Asia Connects Through Design.
