Reinventing the Hospitality: Sharing Economy and New Hospitality Formats

This chapter analyses the influence of the sharing economy upon the design of hospitality spaces from the specific point of view of the interior design. In particular the analysis is dedicated to describe how the impact of the web platforms on the hospitality based on the sharing of spaces and services—especially AirBnB for the global relevance—are transforming the hospitality system based on hotels and hostels not only introducing new formats and new concepts in this field, but also stimulating a relevant afterthought of the interpretation of hospitality. In the contemporary society, collective spaces are considered very relevant to civic, architectural, urban and morphological richness of a contemporary city. In particular the spaces for hospitality, like hotels and hostels, but also new formats recently developed and strictly related to the domestic sphere, are also acquiring more and more relevance because this typology of spaces has been very sensitive to the social, economic and cultural transformations related to new ways of living–working–travelling based on “in-motion” lifestyle. Spaces to welcome people who spend their life “in transit” acquire a meaningful importance determining the massive increase of the use and the design of innovative hybrid spatial solutions able not only to answer to new needs and behaviours, but also to translate new collaborative processes in inclusive places where guests/people “feel like at home”.