An Evaluation Of Interior Styles In The Serviced Apartment Sector In Nairobi.

Abstract

Serviced apartments play a major economic role in various economic zones worldwide. In Africa, they can promote economic growth if their potential is fully utilized, since their conceptualization is relatively young in the continent with their oversupply being one of the key challenges currently. Focusing on the unestablished serviced apartment brands in Nairobi which vastly contribute to this oversupply, the lack of originality in interior styles since most of the apartments are copying each other is one of the factors affecting their growth. This unoriginality is because the developers/owners’ lack adequate information on what clearly entails a serviced apartment from a design standpoint. The study aimed at providing information to property owners/developers and potential investors in the serviced apartments sector in a design-oriented method, through evaluating the interior styles of the unestablished apartments with considerations on how they can relay their distinctiveness through tangible and intangible design elements such as colors, materials, décor, furniture, fixture & equipment, lighting, ambiance and design practices, and how they can deliver their brand’s experience to customers through their interior styles. Objectives guiding the study included exploring the choice of interior style(s) incorporated in the serviced apartments, assessing how the serviced apartments can deliver their brand experience to customers through tangible and intangible interior style elements and to determine ways of enhancing creativity and innovativeness in the serviced apartments sector through interior style(s), to improve the serviced apartments’ brand experience. A qualitative exploratory research design was incorporated to achieve these objectives and the findings indicated that there is lack of diversity in terms of interior style choices being deployed in the interiors. Most of the unestablished apartments had a modern finish/style with twists on the general structure and furnishings incorporated in the spaces. Furthermore, there still is a lack of adequate information on design standards/guidelines on what makes up a serviced apartment. Some of the apartments were refurbished but still used the previous concepts of interior styles and materials. To address these challenges, the study provided these guidelines and recommended awareness creation through various interior design forums and outlets like home expos and magazines, localization of styles into Afrocentric themes/styles to enhance design diversity in the sector, embracing ICT in terms of apt online marketing on online platforms, responding to changing guests’ requirements and encouraging proper interior branding in the apartments.