Bloc Hotels appoints Start Design as brand partner

Good news. We can now officially announce that BLOC Hotels will be working with Start Design as their strategic and creative brand partner. We are already working together on a strategic development programme that covers brand, digital and experience design.

If you don’t already know, BLOC Hotels is a premium, short-stay hotel brand, founded in 2010, to redefine the hotel experience for a new generation of travellers.

Our work will happen alongside an ambitious, well-funded nationwide expansion. The next BLOC Hotel will be BLOC Grand Central, a newly built 23-floor tower in Birmingham.

The new guest experience will continue BLOC Hotel’s ethos of putting design thinking at the heart of everything it does – from efficient mobile booking, check-in and room control platforms, to calming, intelligent guest room design.

Rob Morgan, BLOC Hotels CEO and founder, says:

“We’re working to improve the model for guests, cities and communities. The market is long overdue a refresh and with it the experience. For us, design has always been a lens through which to address that.

The bed and quality of sleep are obviously of central importance. But, as we see it, there’s so much more to a ‘great short stay’. The old bed and kettle model doesn’t work for today’s travellers, with better design, we can get the best for Bloc Hotels from our locations, spaces, employees and manufacturing processes.

Since our first meeting with Start Design, they have echoed this commitment to design. It’s very clearly in their DNA, and we’re thrilled to be working with them going forward as we bring BLOC Hotels and our brand to travellers across the UK.”

Darren Whittingham, Start Design Group CCO adds; “It’s a real pleasure partnering with the BLOC Hotels leadership team to help define and strengthen this ethos. Their unshakeable belief that design thinking can truly shape and differentiate their brand, improving the quality of the guest experience for every traveller, aligns perfectly with our beliefs and approach to consultancy. Great design, sets great brands apart, BLOC Hotels is a great brand of the future and one to watch.”