Interestingly, there is growing evidence that good design produces economic and social benefit in some commercial areas, but there is an urgent need for researchers to investigate hotels. To turn hotel aesthetics into an opportunity, hard nosed architects and interior designers, hotel developers and researchers must study what the guest values about look and feel — not solely prestige but enjoyment, not conspicuous consumption but personal meaning. The marketing and strategy literatures have a plethora of tools and techniques to help practitioners better understand the guest and
obtain sustained competitive advantage. This now needs to be empirically tested in richer qualitative and quantitative studies. This provides the potential for meaningful public-private partnerships to perform research studies that are academically robust but are of significance to the practitioner.