Yesterday, a hotel was a well located place, a protected facade, rooms with view, and a gigantic breakfast. But this was yesterday… Today, everything has changed. No one wants to stay in its hotel room, have breakfast at a set time or eat out the entire buffet. Organic, detox, fair-trade, vegan trends have changed our perceptions. Everything is now happening in the lobby. For years, it has been considered as the entrance. Today, it has achieved the status of the most desirable place in the hotel. The place to be.

As if the most important was now to be seen, to participate, to meet, to share rather than staying in bed watching TV… In fact, you don’t even need to book a room to benefit from it. The lobby has become a grey zone in the hotel, neither totally public, nor totally private. Not much of a space to check-in or check-out, as everything is now done online, and room service ordered through a tablet. A go-between situation revealing an evolution that is finally very much of our time.

Lobbies are now representing a new ‘urban fantasy’ where tourists aspire to live extraordinary souvenirs and share them online immediately, where ‘start-uper’s’ come to work in a cool environment, and where neighbors can attend mini cultural events, that re-enchant local community life.

According to historians, today’s lobbies are reviving an ancient tradition that was carried on till the Belle Époque, where the high society would meet in boutiques and ‘table d’hôtes’. Yet, the mindset is much more relaxed, cool, and trendy ; DJs, ‘start-uper’s’, co-workers enjoy to meet at the bar or around a football table. The ‘Hype’ has really become the ultimate quest of urban middle class.