TURN YOUR PHONE OFF BEFORE ENTERING

What is it?

Do you know how many times you unlock your phone every hour? According to a Ikea Spain research we do it every ten minutes. At this point, can we assume we are overconnected? At Bellora, a hotel located in Gothenburg, they think so, and bring us the chance to change that in a joint venture with the insurance company Länsförsäkringar. The Check Out Suite offers the opportunity of saving money while we keep the focus on people we are sharing our time with. It is possible thanks to some intelligent lamps through which the internet connection is provided. Then, they can control how long we have been connected to the internet and we will pay for our room depending on how much we did. The bulbs get redder as we spent time on the internet. And, of course, if we don’t visit any web or social media during our whole stay we won’t pay a crown.

Why it’s Cool?

• The initiative use the technology to make us conscious about how much and how valuable the time that we spend on social media. Using technology to control our technology dependence.
• It doesn’t forbid the guest to connect to the internet, it’s the guest who has to control their own behaviour, if they don’t want to pay more.
• Whatever happens during the stay the guests always get something. If they can’t refrain themselves to connect to the internet, unless they do it for emergency, they will notice that they have something to fix. Otherwise, if they don’t touch their phones, they will enjoy a free night in a hotel.

Why it has future growth potential?

Now more than ever, because of the social distancing in the time of Coronavirus, social networks are playing a leading role in our communication and this role is becoming more and more important. Nevertheless, we miss the close contact with our friends and relatives. Therefore, we don’t have to choose between a virtual and a real net, we have to manage both. For instance, we have seen internet stars that had to stop sharing their lives on the internet as they were getting distressed in their pursuit of likes. There are just a few, but many people suffer the consequences of overexposure. The point here is that the experience has to be shared, but just with the same people who are sharing the room with us in real time, in real life.

Spaces that bring us the opportunity of having a break in the social media and internet life will be demanded by a overconnected generation. Maybe in the future our holidays won’t consist in discover places exclusively, but we will discover people too (and this includes ourselves), and I know it because it is already so.