The Value of Four-Star Hotels from Architectural Design Perspectives

As one of tourists’ destination cities, Bandung offers numerous hotels for its visitors who are dominated by domestic tourists. With the vast choices of types, facilities, and prices, the market competition between hotels is inevitable, especially with the emergence of small-scale hotels that are on a par with three-star hotels. As an impact, the markets of hotels with higher classes or stars are getting more segmented, especially four-star hotels. Standing in between the affordable three-star hotels and the luxurious five-star hotels, four-star hotels seem to bridge both classes through an impression of luxury, yet still affordable. Nevertheless, this issue creates a bias as expressed in a question: how luxurious are four-star hotels if they are still affordable? Through comparing the architecture and interior design of Mercure, Sensa, and de Pavilijoen, three popular four-star hotels in Bandung, this paper explores the value of four-star hotels from architectural design perspectives. The result of this study later serves to discover and bring the uniqueness of four-star hotel design to the surface and make it attain distinction from other star-hotels. Keywords Hotel design, hotel architecture, four-star hotels, contemporary design, architecture styles