Cruise & Ferry Interiors 2021

9 7 Norwegian Cruise Line has top-class shows on its ships, such as the six-time Tony Award-winning ‘Kinky Boots’ we did it right. Therefore, we visited numerous smokehouses in Texas, tasting copious amounts of barbecued food and practiced smoking meat over many weekends. The feedback has been tremendous, and, for me, it is a very exciting and vibrant space. We consider many factors when we’re looking at new concepts like Q Texas Smokehouse. Our approach is three- fold, focusing on what our guests are telling us, what is trending in the design industry, and what our team goes out and experiences. We’d obviously be foolish to ignore feedback from our guests. We always follow up with our valued customers to find out what they would like to see and do onboard a ship, and what they think the gaps are in the current onboard offerings. We then use analytics companies that specialise in trends, such as food and beverage, entertainment or retail, to corroborate what we have determined through our own research and take these insights into the design phase. Feedback from our onboard teams is also important as they’re the ones who are physically working and living in those spaces. Therefore, when we are in the design phase of a newbuild, we have regular workshops with the teams who know each space and venue best. In short, our onboard teams are a big part of the design process not only for the next generation of vessels, but also for refurbishments of our much-loved fleet of ships, too. Functionality is key for great hospitality design. No matter how beautiful the space is, we need to be able to operate in it. Whatever the space is designed for – whether it’s a space for entertainment, retail, relaxation or food and beverage – it must be functional for the purpose. A key part of functionality – and a lot of people forget the importance of this in the cruise world – is storage capabilities. The cast and crew of our entertainment shows, for example, need a significant amount of space to store their costumes and sets. So, we have “ Functionality is key for great hospitality design”