In a time when travel is limited, hoteliers are considering how to respond to human health and environmental needs in order to entice not only those coming from abroad but locals. Here’s how hotelier Charlotte Gomez de Orozco developed the aesthetic of the HOY hotel, making it a new rave for the hospitality scene in the city of Paris. The hotel is looking to reopen mid-June bu this will depend on the next announcement made by the French government.
The HOY hotel in Paris offers more than accommodation. In addition to its 22 TV-free guest suites, HOY hosts a yoga studio, a restaurant and a flower shop. Each element of the interior design invites guests to enjoy personal rituals, to seek new ways to indulge and to restore health while vacationing.
Hoy is the Spanish word for today, and that is precisely what the hotel focuses on accompanying its guests as they focus on nurturing and healing and socializing at the moment. It is intended to be a meeting place, revolving around the health and well being of the body, mind and soul.
“We believe that hospitality can be friendly, nurturing and accessible,” de Orozco states on the HOY website. “We strive to make every stay with us as unique as the guests who walk through our front doors because every day is a new exciting opportunity waiting to happen! We have created a hotel that has been built with consciousness at its core, taking care of today for a better tomorrow.”
Hotelier Charlotte Gomez de Orozco developed the aesthetic of the hotel with the help of Sabrina Goldin and Stéphane Abby, a pair of restaurateurs who already oversee two Parisian eateries.
Each room has a natural air purifier, a dance bar for stretching and a yoga set for personal practice. Some of the larger suites also have yoga hammocks suspended from the ceiling.
In line with the general use of organic and French products in the restaurant and elsewhere, HOY partnered with the first zero-waste shop in Paris called The Naked Shop in order to create uniquely blended toiletries.
Charlotte Gomez de Orozco’s Franco-Mexican heritage inspired her to create a 100% plant-based Latin America-style cuisine for the restaurant. The menu was made in collaboration with the English chef, Lauren Lovatt.
The restaurant has one large dining area and a few more casual ones with communal wooden tables, terracotta pendant lamps and bench seats with burnt-orange seat cushions. Warm-hued timber was used to craft the dining chairs. The dining tables made of veiny stone have a slate-grey seating banquette on the wall side, behind which is a greenery-filled planter.
The walls were made using hand-rendered concrete to create a texture like the natural feel of rock. Shapely ceramic ornaments and a handwoven rug hanging on the wall are used to decorate the room.
Environmentally conscious, HOY sends its waste to an organization that promotes ethical practices.
The team sources sustainable products from local providers and commissions regional and foreign artisans who make bespoke one-of-a-kind pieces.
More than a practice, yoga represents the amusement of living in the present moment, according to de Orozco.
The yoga studio fits the hotel’s theme of wellbeing. It’s a place where guests can find a moment with their inner self, to start listening to their body and allow curiosity to arise. Its YUJ yoga studio is known in Paris as the first yoga studio with infrared lights.
De Orozco designed one room as the wellness room, dedicated to energy and osteopathic care intending to take care of guests.
The hotel also includes a Japanese florist, where bright bouquets are backed by a wall clad in creamy Zellige tiles molded, cut and glazed by hand.
What’s on the Agenda for HOY?
Although HOY is hoping to reopen mid-June, travel bans will still prevent tourists from outside the country and possibly outside the city of Paris. Post quarantine the hotel plans on renting its rooms to independent therapists on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis as well as organizing retreats for Parisians and French tourists. Guests can participate in one to seven-day retreats with the theme of self-love and inner development, including a 360° HOY experience with a room, breakfast/dinner meditations, yoga classes, cooking and flower workshops, osteopathy sessions and face soul yoga classes.
“Paris probably won’t be the same until September and It is important for us to make our clients feel like they are traveling even though they are only a few miles or km from home,” said Charlotte Gomez de Orozco in an email correspondence with ArchiExpo e-Magazine.
The team at HOY will only take natural measures to stay safe, such as working with essential oils, buying only organic and natural brands and trusting our team members to respect our security measures.
“We will implement sustainable measures to avoid single-use masques, gloves, gels, take away packaging.”
de Orozco doesn’t believe the current situation will modify the hotel’s ideas around health but that it will affect the way people travel and where they travel to, affecting the hotel industry in a drastic and difficult way.
“Traveling closer to home will make people feel safer and protected,” said de Orozco, adding she thinks they’ll prefer to travel within their home countries.
“There will be also a real growth in environmental conscience. I want to believe future tourists will choose their destinations as their hotels in a very different way they did before. Traveling by car or by train, prioritizing small and eco-responsible lodges like small family homes with the tendency of going back to basics.”
Find more images of HOY below. Courtesy of the hotel.
