The hotel that lets you kill the internet
June 24, 2015 7:10 pm
The hotel that lets you kill the internet
By Malcolm Moore
Desperate times call for desperate measures. One luxury
hotel company has come up with the ultimate way to help its guests to relax: a
switch that kills the internet.
A silver switch next to the beds in the Villa Stéphanie
spa resort in Baden-Baden activates a copper grid in the walls to block all
wireless internet signals.
“It is like a light switch,” said Frank Marrenbach, the
chief executive of the Oetker Collection, which also runs Le Bristol in Paris,
the Hotel Du Cap in Cap d’Antibes and will open a renovated Lanesborough hotel
in London on July 1.
So far around half his guests have opted, at some point
during their stay, to kill their internet. The move may seem extreme, given
that simply switching off connected devices would achieve the same end. But
Chris Baréz-Brown, an author on work-life balance, said most of us cannot
control our urge to sneak a peek at our screens.
“We are not very good at managing our behaviour,” he
said. “You only have to look at alcohol, cigarettes, sugary drinks, television
watching or gaming.
“We are going to see a lot more ideas like this. There
will be zones where people disconnect, a lot more businesses will suggest for
certain times of day people don’t email and so on. There is a lot of research
that suggests our multitasking is making us shallower,” he added.
Mr Marrenbach said that as well as the copper grid, his
rooms had a special coating to block “96 per cent” of wireless signals. “It
doesn’t matter what your neighbour does, if you switch it off you have no
reception,” he said. He predicted the technology would be common in luxury
homes within five years.
No other hotel has gone to the same extreme, but many are
wondering how to help their guests relax in a constantly connected world.
InterContinental Hotels Group said its business hotels, such as the Crowne
Plaza chain, offer aromatherapy and podcasts by a sleep expert.
Mr Marrenbach said many of his guests, who will pay
€1,115 per night for a package at the Villa Stephanie this summer, had not
switched off for years. “We all need to learn more how to deal with this in a
healthy way,” he said. “In the 1950s, nobody was bothered about smoking because
everybody smoked. Now when you see people smoking these days it comes across
vulgar.”
He added: “It is not a sign of smartness to constantly
look at incoming messages. This is not smart, this is stupid. Smart is to
devote time when it is time to do so. Smart is to read things in a profound
way.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015.
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