JOI-Design

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I’m here with Corinna and Peter. Thanks so much for joining me today. How are you two?

Peter Joehnk: Hello, Stacy. Well, I’m fine. I think Corinna also.

Corinna Kretschmar-Joehnk: Yes, very, very fine. We’re here in our office villa in Hamburg.

SSR: Okay, so let’s start at the beginning. Let’s start with you, Peter, where did you grow up?

PJ: Well, I grew up in Bavaria in south of Germany and my father was an electric engineer, more a scientific guy of personality. My mother was at home and caring for the children and doing lovely cooking. I still admire most of the food she cooked, was always lovely. Then if we continue my life, I was always interested in art and I always had these two things in my soul which is the science and the… And as I was… I liked to make my motorbikes faster and all these boys things faster and louder of course, but at the same time I always painted and so on.

And so I found interior design was the perfect compromise between the two things that lived in my body. And interior design really is something that has to do with art, but at the same time it has to be done. And so the pragmatism of being… Not scientist, that’s the wrong word, but to be pragmatic helps a lot in realizing the projects that we design.

SSR: Yeah, for sure. And then probably you got some of that from your father.

PJ: Yeah, sure. My father also had a little workshop where he was constructing a lot of furniture and lots of things. And I was always interested to work there. Actually, I was not sure whether I should study at all or go to a woodworking shop and would work there. In the end… And I earned money during my studies by building doors and windows in new buildings. But during that time, I recognized that’s nothing for my life, so I studied.

SSR: Yeah, where did you go to school?

PJ: Also in Bavaria. I was born in Kronach, which nobody from outside of Germany, even in Germany, nobody would know. It’s still in the south of Germany. And then my parents moved including myself and my brother, I have a brother, to the western part of Germany, Palatinate. And then where I studied also, then I moved to Hamburg. My brother studied actually geophysics and moved to Australia. Now he lives in Australia with a Mexican wife and I live together with Corinna in Hamburg.

SSR: Amazing. All right, Corinna, your turn. And where did you grow up?

CKJ: Yeah, differently. I was grown up in the middle somewhere, western part of Germany. My parents are both musicians. My mother is not with us anymore. My father is still, he is 94. I’m very happy to have him still with me here in Hamburg in a senior’s residence. And they were musicians, my father a singer and my mother a piano player, pianist. And they met studying, came together, and then they had master classes and taught students to do music. My brother and me, also two children. My brother began to play cello. I began to play the piano and the flute, the [inaudible 00:04:36] flute, and we sang. So in our childhood, we had a lot of music. My brother still stayed with this. He’s still doing this in a pop version more modern contemporary.

PJ: And also married to a musician.

CKJ: Yeah, he’s married to singer. And myself, at some point I said, oh, practicing each day in my room hours for hours and then beginning from scratch when I go on stage, when I have to present it to an audience, I was too shivering and scared. It was for me, it was lovely music. I love it still. But I then somehow found out at school that there is something else, what I love more and this was art. We call it building arts, also at schools. So drawing pictures and graphics and learning about big painters. And so I was interested in that and my parents said, okay, this is also creative, you can go forward with this. And then I came into this direction for interior design.

And my mother by the way, before she became, she twisted into music, what was her passion. She began studying medicine because her father was a doctor. And I had this also in my soul. And I was also struggling in my youth and said to her, I have to help people. And then she encouraged me to do interior design. She said, you can help people with nice rooms, nice ambience. You can make them happy and healthier and productive… And I went in my direction.

SSR: That’s amazing. So did you go study for interior design then?

CKJ:  Yeah, I studied interior design. And in my hometown, it was not spectacular. There was only the musical high school with my parents. And there was a high school for architecture and the interior architecture. And so I stayed there. I had a nice youth, very protected, very small city, 60000 inhabitants and my crowd of people whom I knew from school and then the new crowd of people from the students. And I had a nice youth and then I moved to Hamburg after studies. And then I met Peter already.

SSR:  Wait. So the high school was dedicated to interior architecture and architecture. That’s amazing. You don’t find that often.

CKJ: No, this is also in Germany. Not often. That’s right.

SSR: Was it more of like a university setting or was it high school?

CKJ: Yeah, we call it high school here. We have got technical universities, universities and high school. The high school, it’s the same stuff you get taught by…

PJ: It’s a university.

CKJ: But it’s a… I think internationally, the translation is a university, but we also did practical work there.

SSR: And do you still play piano and cello? Sorry flute.

CKJ: Unfortunately, I love music. I’m touched by heart and when I hear nice music I’m crying, when I’m happy I sing, but I don’t. I didn’t practice. So I’m happy when I’m together with my friends, with my brother’s friends and they have a guitar and then we can sing around the fireplace or so. But I’m more the listener now.

SSR:  Does your brother go out and perform? Is he like a…

CKJ: Yes, he still does. He’s always with bands traveling and so… But because he cannot live from that alone, it’s not so easy. Sometimes also, the last two years were very poor of course, he takes photos from our interiors. He’s a good photographer also. He’s a creative person. We work together also. Family business.

SSR:  Yeah, a man of many talents. I love it. And so wait, go back to your mom’s influence. So what troubles were you having? What did you… Why was interior design an outlet or why did she think it was an outlet for you? Can you go back over what you said?

CKJ: Yeah, she was very emotional and very empathetic. And because she also had a very similar history because first she thought she should help people and she should study medicine, becoming a doctor because her father was that. But then came the second World War. She was born 1925. And then she became a nurse and helped people and saw the soldiers. But then she found out that her passion is in music and she was so much happier when she finally got there and could do this and practiced this and teach this to young students. Therefore, she said to me, when I was also beginning to think, I have to become a doctor to help people, she said, no, do what your passion is. And you can… You have done much, much better. You can be much better and much more helpful for people if you do it right. And you can do always the best thing for helping people also with that. So she pushed me in this direction.

SSR: Love it, love it, love it. Okay, so how did you two meet?

PJ: Corinna, do you want to tell that?

CKJ: Yeah, maybe…

SSR: I’d love hearing both sides of the story.

CKJ: Yeah, it is a nice story because I stopped studying. I had my degrees. I was an engineer and so I was ready with my studying. And then I looked wherever I had to move from my little town into the world. This was clear. And then I found Hamburg as a nice city. And then, ah, there is a nice office, Joehnk Interior Designers. The last name. JOI-Design comes from that. It’s a short version of Joehnk Interior Design, the last name from Peter. And then I applied for a job and we had an interview and I found him very sympathetic and it was a match.

PJ: But it took something like seven years.

CKJ: Yeah, he was my boss and I was the employee and I started there and it was super nice.

PJ: And we called us by the last names she was Mrs. Kretschmar, I was Mr. Joehnk. It’s the greatest thing in Germany.

CKJ: It’s Germany’s specialty. It’s very crazy. When we met that time already, when we had international relationships with business partners, clients, then we called ourselves by the first names because everybody does it. I said, Peter, but in the German language, you say then Z not the U. It’s crazy. So we work together, normally boss and employee, and then after seven years…

PJ: Which has completely changed as you can imagine.

SSR: I now know who the boss is.

CKJ: No, no, no, no, no half-half. But after seven years…

PJ: Everybody who listens to that podcast can measure it by the amount of speech.

CKJ: No, you will continue. In 1993, I began working for Peter. And then in 2000 I moved to Switzerland because he was so nice. He observed and he spoke with me and I said, I want to go abroad. I want to do something else. I don’t want to stay in Hamburg all the time. I left New York, for example. So I wanted to go into the world. And then he said, there is a possibility, not New York, sorry, but Zurich, Switzerland, I have a client there. Maybe we can open up a branch office there with you and another partner. And we did that. And so we became partners.

And in Switzerland, the people say already, there’s you and you, Peter and Corinna. And it was very difficult for us to come into this routine. But we worked together and became a partner for one more year. And after then it was very interesting. I knew Peter, he had a family, two nice little boys, they were very little when I began working in Hamburg. I knew the family. But there was a divorce in between and I knew he was alone and he lived on his own. And then somehow… The distance made it, I think, because from distance, we got to know each other differently with more…. And also personal relations…

PJ: And Corinna became famous in Switzerland.

CKJ:  famous.

PJ: Yeah, really, because she was in the newspapers and she was working. She did the first McDonald’s hotel, actually the fast food McDonald’s and she did two hotels, worldwide first McDonald’s hotels. Actually, they were the only ones that were ever built. So all the press was full with the pictures of Corinna and I thought, wow, it’s a powerful little girl. Nice.

CKJ: Yeah and we came together somehow. It was again my mother, by the way… This was again my mother. I said to Peter once… I thought, well he’s really nice but it cannot be, he was my former boss. I always had something in my mind. I didn’t let it because I thought it cannot be, this is not allowed. He was my former boss, what will other people think. And then I spoke to my mother once, I know I remember this very well. And then I said to her, I’m very sad because it’s not possible. He’s such a nice person and we have the same goals. We have the same interests and we work so nicely together. And there could be a closer relationship. And then she…

We had several of these conversations. And then after a few, she said, well, there will come a time. And I said, what? What do you mean there will come a time? Do you think this is going to be possible in a special period of time? And she said, yes of course, wait for the right moment. And so it was again her. She pushed me in this direction.

SSR:  Amazing. And Peter, why did you start your own firm before Corinna came? Did you work somewhere else before? Or what was it that made you launch your own firm?

PJ: Yeah, actually I was always wanting to do it on my own, to work on my own. But of course I was an employee for, I think, three or four years with an office where we did work for private clients, but also my former boss started to work in hospitality and we did a kind of famous ultra luxury project in south of Germany. And during that time, I learned to know other clients and I told my boss, I would love to continue working with you, but as a freelance and I do my own office.

And that all worked well and I never had not enough work. I was always busy. Actually my own problem was always space because I started of course at home, in my little apartment. And then we got a baby with my first wife and I had to go… Well my first employee was sitting next to me actually at the same desk, in that little room which I used as an office, which then had to become the child’s room. And so I rented an office and then I hired a lot of people and it grew relatively fast up to 50 people around that. We had these partnerships in England, in Holland and an office in south of Germany. And actually the office became so big that I lost control.

And there was a crisis also, 9/11 and afterwards that economic crisis. And I fell in receivership and then I had nothing. And because it was a private company, it was not that… I haven’t had the possibility to take out any money of that company. So I was really afraid to sit under the bridges and ask people with my hat for some coins. Well, it didn’t happen, but the risk was given.

And actually together with Corinna, we reopened the office. It was called after my name Joehnk, during the first time, then took the office together with Corinna was JOI-Design. And she officially was my boss then. So the role changed completely because she owned the company and I was just her employee.

SSR:  And why JOI? I know it’s a truncated version.

PJ: Yeah joy with a JOI not y. J is from Joehnk, O also JO, Joehnk, I, interior and we kept the design. JOI-Design. At the beginning we called ourselves JOI Design, and everybody else said JOI-Design from the beginning. And then after a while, we also changed to JOI-Design, many years ago already.

SSR:  You’re bringing joy.PJ: Yeah.

SSR: It works. So you relaunched the company, were you guys always wanting to do hospitality? Was that your passion? Were you doing anything else at the time? Tell us kind of how you progressed from there to where you are today.

PJ: Do you want me to answer Corinna? Normally it’s you.

CKJ: Yeah, please. Yeah. Yeah.

PJ: Well, as my previous boss did a luxury hotel, I was also involved in the hotel scenery somehow. And so from the beginning my clients came from the hospitality industry. So it was… It became a passion like with Corinna. After a while, at the beginning, it could have been anything. I could have done shops, theaters, whatever. I was very open to do anything. Actually my interest always was to build big cities.

Actually, after my studies of interior design, I wanted to become an architect. And I started even studying architecture, as anything with interior design was for me, was too small. I wanted to build cities and higher rise buildings and so on. But I stayed with the interior design. So it was not a passion from the beginning. It came through the work that I did. And after getting into the hospitality, I fell in love. Like with Corinna, I’m not the one who is immediately falling in love. It takes me a while, slowly. Slowly guy. And now I really love hospitality and the open minded people, being in that area of hospitality, so it’s beautiful now.

CKJ: Yeah, I think we got to know other fields in between, and now we are working also in other fields and sometimes the other fields are more profitable and we can experience that. Also, the timelines are not so… The return on invest has to be… Then the opening and not… It’s not so stressful sometimes. But we love this hospitality family. But we set this mindset, the people it’s… We have grown with them and we can understand them. I think also the best and we love it.

SSR: That’s amazing. And how do you two work well together? What are your strengths and weaknesses and how do you compliment each other?

CKJ: Yeah, compliment…

PJ: We compliment each other in any way, really in way. Corinna’s emotional talking a lot. I’m more the calm guy, not talking too much actually. And within the office, I’m the technician and she’s more the creative probably. Actually, we don’t have a split of jobs in the office. Corinna does the same as I do, probably she does a bit more. She’s a bit more on stages than I am. She’s more the person who does marketing and presentations. Yes. And I’m doing the costs of the projects, which I…

CKJ: The pay is more.

PJ:  Do not like so much, but I have to.

CKJ: He was more at the beginning involved because he has more experience still. And he is for the big concepts, he can shift the areas and he knows what is best for delivering and for staff and for all the back of house areas and all these things. And then he’s good in the numbers and very quick in the head with the big numbers and shooting, also there, the right areas coming together for the investment. This is not my kind of field, but we are both in the design. We are both passionate and we have different opinions often, but I think this is also good to balance this out. And then we work always with the team. We are just… At the beginning, we are the impulse givers and then we come together with a team. I think I sit longer together with the team because I’m more the passionate patient person. So I sit there and we study and one detail and shoot it from left to right.

PJ: I do the next project then. I’m not patient at all. I always want to continue, continue, continue, further next, go on until…

SSR: Love it. And tell us about your team. What are your office, what’s it like? How big is it? What’s your culture like and what do you try to instill in your team?

PJ: Yeah, let’s start with the culture. We are a family office, as Corinna already said, her brother does the pictures. And previously also, our sister-in-law was running the office. And we kept that idea of a family with all our employees. And before we had COVID we were more than 40 people, but that was really a cut in our office, we are now together, I think 35.

CKJ: Again.

PJ: Yeah, again. We hired again. So within Europe we are a big office, within Germany anyway, the largest one. Internationally, there are much larger offices in US and Asia, especially Asia is growing in interior design. And Asia we also have an… Well, I’m not sure whether that fits to your questions, but we have an office in Asia. We opened an office there also due to a client, which we have in India. And that’s a growing market, which really is fun to work in, for us.

CKJ: Yeah, but maybe come back to the office. Maybe I can show you. We are living in… We are working in an old villa with a big garden with green around, and it’s really 100 years old and we rented it. It’s not ours, unfortunately, but it’s nice to be here. And the people love it. And this already… This underlines and emphasizes this feeling of working together as a family. And we have this flat hierarchy in between.

Yeah but team is really key. So the team is key, we would be nothing without the team. And we are many women, by the way. Interior design is a female profession and it works quite well, I think because of the flat hierarchy, so we are not… There is no being jealous or something. She has nicer projects or something like that. So we are always… JOI-Design is working because we love to be together. We experienced this remotely working in the past two years. And of course we do it still one, two days a week. It’s possible that the people work from home, also the mothers work from home. This is very important. But also the mothers and everybody loves to come here to exchange our minds and picking out the right materials and draw together the first sketches. And so it’s teamwork, it’s always teamwork and knowledge exchange from the more experienced people. The younger people get how it works.

And so we also began to grow next to us, next level with partners in between our two people and the senior designers. Now we have three partners by the side. Also, former senior designers they all work with us over 15 years now, so we are very happy that we have people who are with us for many years. And these three partners, one woman, two men, it’s not so typical for us, but so there are two men in this crowd. They work with us together. And when we are traveling, they are people to speak with and they help with creative questions or technical questions. And one is also responsible together with Peter for the contracts and for the discussing about the fees. And so we split this already a bit. So that is a bit more.

SSR: Well, that’s great because I think a lot of people struggle with how do you pass the torch, right? Like how do you continue your legacy and allow you to still be very involved, but also, bring in others? And I know it’s always a topic of conversation. People are like, you get to a certain point and you’re like, what’s next, right? How do we continue this? So that’s great that you found a way to work. And how big is your team overall? I’m sorry if you said it and I missed it.

CKJ: 35.

SSR: 35.

PJ: Plus the Indian office, which is currently eight, but growing fast. We are in India since four years now.

CKJ: Five years.

PJ: Five years now. And we started of course with a little office of two people and now they are eight. But currently it picks up very fast and [inaudible 00:30:14], our Indian partner hires and already rented another space, another office. In fact, it’s on the same level where we had the previous office in the large office building. So that’s very good there.

SSR: Yeah, that’s great. And so are you getting a lot of work in India? Is that a new growth area? What are you working on over there?

PJ: Actually, the reason why we have that office is Puneet Chhatwal. I don’t know whether you know him, he’s the CEO and managing director of Taj Hotels, Taj Hotel Group. They call themselves Indian hospitality, whatever group…

CKJ: Company limited. IHCL.

PJ: Yeah and they have other brands like Ginger and Vivanta and so on, and selection. And actually we… Puneet asked us to bring some more international approach to India, not in the luxury sector there. India always was very good. Traditional, but very good. But in the other sectors where they did want to be… They asked us to develop new concepts for their brands, Ginger, which is a budget brand and Vivanta, which is a… It stars four to five star brand. And we did that and both brands rolled out very successful. Ginger already has something like… Anyway, there are more than a hundred Ginger hotels in India alone, but already about 50 are in the new design within five years. That’s that’s unbelievably fast.

SSR: That’s crazy. What was it like to recreate a budget brand? Was it…

PJ: Yeah, actually wasn’t our first exercise. We also created Premier Inn, we did the European standard rooms with Moxy, and there was Capri by Fraser’s from Singapore. When they came to Germany we developed their look and feel. So that was not new for us. [inaudible 00:32:25] was India to just pick up the market. What’s the difference between India and Germany? Because of course the clients, the guests that sleep in the hotel usually are not from Europe, although Puneet wanted to make them more international, but also at the same time, it had to be local. And typically we found some way to make the hotels, as we felt typical Indian, more colorful, more bright, also playful. And at the same time they are international. It’s a Ginger hotel could also be in Germany or in New York that would always fit.

There are differences in the habits. Indians eat all day long so there are huge buffets and huge kitchen areas, too many restaurants. So from the costs of employees is not that important as it would be in Western countries so they can afford this. That’s a functional difference. But design wise, as I said, it’s a mixture of Western design. And as we felt Indian, local feeling. And then we… Local-local, we also included a feature wall in the lobby, which always reflects a very local theme within India because India is not India. India has north India, which is completely different from south India, and east India is different from west India. India is huge. It’s a big country with many differences. Actually I’ve learned they have 35 languages and that’s why they all speak English to communicate.

SSR: Amazing. And I love how… I forgot that you all did Capri, but how you have brought… We talk about this a lot, good design doesn’t have to be expensive design, right? Just has to be thoughtful and interesting and you can do that for a budget brand. I mean, Moxy the one you did in Hamburg was an HD Award winner, and you had rugs on the ceiling. I mean, just tell us a little bit about your process and how you approached something and kind of the fun you have doing it and rethinking the norm.

PJ: Corinna do you want that?

CKJ: Yeah, that’s a good thing to having fun. It’s right. When we design a budget brand, so like Moxy, the good thing about it is already the whole team with Marriott already, they are also very happy to have finally a fun brand. So a bit more… You don’t have to take yourself to seriously. So you can just lean back and relax and think of, why not turn the world upside down in the thinking and why not hang the carpet on the ceiling. This was a reminiscent to our storage warehouses in Hamburg, which still store from the past till today, oriental carpets there around the corner of the hotel. And we wanted to pay tribute to that and say, well, we use carpets, but we hang them on the ceiling because we are Moxy.

And sometimes we like this kind of thinking. So don’t use the things you know from school or from designing, form follow, function. No, just lean back and think differently and think with fun. So to inspire people to go there and then they can be even more inspired and go back and tell their families and friends to go there. It’s a nice place to be.

So when we have fun, I think the clients have also fun. This is the [inaudible 00:36:31] of that. And for these budget brands, we do both. We do luxury and we do budget. I think the common thing when we design is that we love to not only the big gestures, but also the discoveries at second glance. And when you just discover after sitting in an armchair and swiveling and then, oh, wow. There in this draw here, maybe when I look into it also then comes the color springing in my eye also. Then we love to also inspire people by walking through, or by walking over a nice floor, which sounds and feels good or smells something like that. So it discovers at second glance are also the same, important for us as the big gestures. And this is the red thread through our designs, I think the love for the details.

SSR: Love it. And then what’s one project that was either something you learned the most from, I know you learned something in every project, but was probably one of your most challenging that kind of sticks with you or really emphasizes what you all do?

PJ: Actually, I think there was one project that was really a big break for us because… I don’t know whether I mentioned in 2003, I fell in receivership. Company fell bankrupt after 9/11 2001. So it took me one and a half years to fall into receivership. But then we started slowly again, we didn’t lose so many clients. We continued but the business was not that great. And then finally, we got a project which was the Hilton and Hilton Garden Inn, two hotels, together 600 rooms at Frankfurt Airport in a very iconic building, which is like a big cigar, one kilometer long. It’s a huge, crazy, iconic building, which at that time, everybody in Germany knew. And after the pitch, we got that big job and brought us back on the map, I would say as interior designers. So that was, for me, that was the most important project.

Challenges we’ve had. Actually, we also have… We do not only learn with each project, we have challenges with each project also. But that was the one which changed the company.

CKJ: Yeah this was a game changer. That’s right.

SSR: How did you stick through that? I mean, that’s not easy to come back from being in receivership and sticking through it and having that mentality that you can kind of pick your head up and do it again?

CKJ: Yeah, I think Peter is good in that. I can answer this for you, Peter, because I saw it with my eyes. I was always embarrassed when people talked to me, approached me and said, whoa, what was there? The history? And I said, oh God, I find a way around this question. And I didn’t want to answer, I always wanted to speak about new things and not about the past, but Peter, exactly the opposite. And this is the best way to go through it. It was his personal thing, but he was always, when he introduced himself, when he met somebody, he approached him and said, hello, I’m Peter. Nice to meet you. Did you hear, I fell in receivership? And I said, oh God. Now, nobody asked for that. But he always straight approached people with the information because he didn’t like them to get to know him and then hear it after this with another [inaudible 00:44:28].

So I think being honest and speaking openly about it, it’s the best thing. It’s 20 years ago and nowadays it’s more in fashion to be open and to be honest and to speak about everything and problems. But I think 20 years ago it was kind of different era and this was very special. I think this was the way to get over it better.

PJ: And I think it was always good to be open with that issue. And actually I had a very good client at that time who said to me, and that was very helpful actually. A giant will stay a giant even when he falls, the main thing is that he stands up again. Because I was already a big office before my bankruptcy. We had, as I said, we had offices in south of Germany, [inaudible 00:45:27] and England and Poland. And then the receivership came, but I don’t think that we lost many clients through that open thing. The reasons why we got bankrupt were clear. And so we continued and it was a break, but it was a restart at the same time. In the end it was very positive.

CKJ: In the end it was a consolidation. It was even better. So to…

SSR: Come together.

CKJ: Step back and think about what did we do and what could we do better? And it’s always a chance. It was even better.

SSR: That’s great. I know you’re working on some exciting things like a river cruise and a few other things. What are you most looking forward to I guess?

CKJ: We are very happy that it’s finally ready. But we work on another cruise, on a big cruise, on an ocean cruise. The river cruise we did every part, so also the captains and the cruise areas and everything, the back of house and the front of house. But on these ocean cruise, it’s much, much bigger. We do the suites, the high end rooms up to the presidential and everything, and the dedicated areas to the suite. So suite, dining decks, sundecks, and corridor, special public areas. And this is challenging. It’s totally… Somehow it’s very similar to hospitality on land but on the other hand, it’s very different of course, because working with steel and working with the shipyards totally different procedures. But we have experienced team members here. Two of the ladies who are experienced in that. We love to work on that. I think this ocean cruiser will ready in 2025 or six or so. We have to wait a bit for that.

SSR: Don’t you have to wait for all projects these days? They’re all wait, right. I mean, what have you taken from hospitality and infused into your cruise ships, even the river cruises, even more kind of like a [inaudible 00:47:51] property. And what have you taken from both? I know weight matters and you have to use different materials and all those good things, but how have you kind of taken your hospitality approach and evolved it let’s say for…?

PJ: The A-ROSA brand, that’s the ship. We just swimming already. A-ROSA. They approached us because of our hospitality experience on land as they wanted to change their image and their clientele. Cruise ship on a river cruise so far, I think around the world is something for the elder people, has been, and they wanted to change to more a resort issue with younger families. And so they changed all their communication, all the marketing and they now use because it’s a German brand, they use a very famous German actress which is young and she has a family.

And they asked us, how would you approach a cruise ship that is similar to a hotel on land but swims, and is in a different destination every day? And how can we become younger? And we found a concept which is not just young, not loud, not a party brand like Moxy. We had to find a solution that would also accommodate the elderly, but at the same time is attractive for the young families.

So marketing wise, A-ROSA already had the idea of having children areas, play areas. We have a large spa area on the boat and these features are not existing on other river cruises. So just functionally already we were lucky enough to get an idea for a product which really fits to our design approach. Corinna, do you want to add something about the design?

CKJ: No, this is perfect. We wanted to… Because river cruise is slow cruising and you can feel that you can touch the landside when you just cruise through the cities and so it’s calming, calm down. And it’s city hopping, but with coming down. When you come back from the inspiring city, from the loud city, from the colors and the lights of the city, you come back on the ship, this was our aim. Then you calm down, the cabins, the guest rooms or the cabins. The cabins are very calm in their approach and their design. And then we open it up for children too. We have kids areas. But these areas like the wellness, like the spa and different dining areas, [inaudible 00:51:14] areas, which also bring you down and inspire you. This was very important. And not the partying and not the bingo playing [inaudible 00:51:23]. I don’t know, so this is awesome.

SSR: Has there been one either hospitality experience or design experience that kind of changed how you think about things or travel experience?

CKJ: Yeah, I think maybe my favorite hotel was, I have to say because it’s not anymore, Delano in Miami. When I studied already, then these Philippe Starck houses came up, Paramount, Royalton in New York City and so on, then Delano. And when I was there, first time, I knew it from the pictures. And when I was there, the first time I was really touched. It’s such a super combination inside, outside, these curtains, these white curtains in the wind, and then like a big runway through it. You see, and to be seen, but also inspired. And nice food and nice humor and a sense of humor. I love this. The pool is in the pool at the end. So it’s just that height of water and people are sitting there with their feet in the water, cool their feet because Miami heat and it’s an Instagramable moment by the way.

And Philippe Starck designed it 30 years ago. So there was no Instagram there at that time.

SSR: Yeah, he was ahead of his time.

CKJ: But it was a good photo spot. And so many inspirations, so many right things what he did there. And this was always my inspiration. And always when I was in Miami, I went there. And last time, I was there a few months ago, one month ago, it’s now not anymore. It will be changed.

SSR: They’re opening up a Maison Delano in Paris. I’m excited to see what they do with the brand under Starck.

CKJ: Yeah that’s right.

SSR: I’m going to Paris as soon as it opens. We’ll meet there Corinna.

CKJ: Yeah, please.

PJ: For me, it would probably was the country India, which was so inspiring. I didn’t know India five years ago and then I went there and it’s such a rich culture. And there are so many ultra luxury rich people there, and there’s such a poorness. And then these contrasts and the spirit also, it’s a mentally, it’s a very interesting country. And the combination of how the rich live together with the poor and the other way around, in the same quarter actually. And seeing all the richness of the palaces, which were built just 50 years ago. It’s a world that I never experienced before. And that for me was really a cultural, not to shock the contrast of a shock. Cultural inspiration where I… My English is so bad, sorry. Where I really took a lot of for my life.

SSR: And after 30 plus years in the business, what do you think are, first an opportunity for hospitality moving forward and your biggest challenge?

PJ: Yeah, design wise I could not say where the future is going actually, but definitely the hospitality industry is going to be more virtual. The big success companies are those who are good in marketing, in selling. And the current trend is that a hotel doesn’t need to be in one house. A hotel could be an apartment here and an apartment there and so on. Actually the content changes, I don’t know how hotel or hospitality, I don’t know how the design will follow up this trend of getting more virtual. And with the crypto things and so on, it’s a world that is the NFTs. We just spoke about this today. Those tokens that can be used for overnights, but also you can buy and other things, that’s something that will change the hospitality industry, how it influences design we will see.

SSR: Yeah. Corinna anything to add?

CKJ: Yeah, I’m more the hands on person step by step. So I’m always observing everywhere what is changing our minds. And I think the last two years of course did many things with everybody. And so coming together again with the community, this is more… Not so far away like Peter’s science fiction visions. So just coming together again, designing for a community, being on my own, being alone but together. This is the chance for a hotel and again, designing for these areas coming together, working remotely, not anymore in the offices, but traveling on the trips and in the hotel lobbies. And so designing for these new and old, but newly refreshed demands, I find this still very, very inspiring and very challenging for us, pushing us. Again, what will change us now, coming together again?

SSR: So I hate to end the conversation because I could hang out with you guys forever, but we always end the podcast with the title of the podcast. So what has been your greatest lesson learned or lessons learned along the way? Corinna, I’ll start with you. Let Peter have the final word.

PJ: I would say hospitality design as the whole live is an up and down. And when we have a down, the next up is going to come. I think the Americans say there’s a silver line on the horizon everywhere and the hills are not endless. So going up means also going down again and you have to accept that it’s not only one direction. It’s always up and down.

SSR: Oh, I love that.

CKJ: Okay, so far…

SSR: Final word somehow.

CKJ: Yeah, sorry. Thank you. I think hospitality design is still a people’s business. We are people designing for people and this is the greatest gift and greatest challenge at the same time. And we learn each day from another, but from the different angles and opinions. And you can see the success of a design, when we design hotels, you can see immediately the success. If the people walk in or not, or walk out again and don’t come back. And so we have to keep in touch with the demands and the new wishes of the society.

SSR:  Thank you both so much for spending this last hour with me. It was such a pleasure and I hope I get to see you both in real life soon.

CKJ: Yes.

PJ: Thank you, Stacy.