Work and play on vacay? Then help create the hotel of the future

Marriott wants you to Travel Brilliantly--and it needs your help in creating the hotel of the future that reflects how travelers increasingly blend time off with time on.

Its new Travel Brilliantly campaign, announced Monday, aims to reflect”the lifestyle of the next generation of travelers, who seamlessly blend work and play in a mobile and global world.”

More than half of Americans work while on vacation, and 30% read work-related emails during their down time, according to a Harris poll released last year.

Goodbye, leisure travel; hello, work while you play.

The hotel chain plans to showcase ideas from the company and from the public so that they become co-creators of what hotels of the future should look like. Even the hotel’s trademark “M” has undergone an upgrade.

Changes in the near and not-so-near future at the company’s 500 hotels and resorts worldwide include:

--Mobile check-in to a room from anywhere in the world, a feature that will be available as early as this summer at selected sites. (Other hotel brands are testing this too.)

--Goji Kitchen & Bar, which “is not a restaurant,” the company says, but a space that accommodates all three meals (instead of separate breakfast and dinner eateries) and farm-to-table food.

--Newly engineered desks created by students at the Rhode Island School of Design.

--Hotels featuring great rooms that go beyond lobbies, where guests can hang, nosh or pull out their laptop.

--Guest rooms that accent “comfort and connectivity.”

Anyone who wants a hand in designing the future hotel room should upload their ideas to the site by the end of September. (You can also see some up there already.) Fifteen first-prize winners will be selected, and the person with the best overall idea will have a chance to work on the new look along with Marriott’s designers.

Info: Travel Brilliantly

Mary.Forgione@latimes.com

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