The Astro Edit: A Walk Through the Radisson RED

We talk about guest experience a lot in this newsletter. Most of the time it's a concept, something to aim for. Every so often you walk into a hotel and see the whole idea executed, room by room, all the way through. The Radisson RED is one of those hotels.

What makes it worth writing about isn't that it's a global brand doing something impressive. It's that it's a global brand that could have taken the easy route. Radisson RED has a template. It would have been simple enough to roll it out here with a local name on the door and call it done. Instead, this property took the brand framework and built something that feels distinctly of this place. That decision shows up in almost every step of the guest journey.

It starts before you even check in

Walk through the front door and you're greeted by a giant kiwi, hanging right there in the entrance. It's the kind of thing that would have been easy to skip, or swap out for something safer and more brand-standard. Instead it's the first thing every guest sees, and it tells you immediately whose hotel this is.

Check in, and then you're in the elevator, which turns out to be part of the experience too. The artwork inside works in the brand's iconic red touch points, and it's genuinely good enough to hold your attention for the ten seconds you're in there, in a space most hotels don't think twice about.

The hallway before the room

Step out of the elevator and there's a water refill station, tucked into the hallway. It sounds minor until you think about the alternative, which is filling your drink bottle at the bathroom sink in your room. Nothing wrong with that water, but it's not exactly the experience you want to have on a trip. Having a dedicated, visible spot to refill on the way to your room solves a problem most guests wouldn't even think to mention on a survey, and solves it before it becomes one.

It's a good example of the kind of thing that only gets built if someone on the design team actually thought about the guest's day rather than the floor plan. Nobody puts a water station in a hallway by accident.

The room itself

Above the bed, unique artwork. On the shower door, its own printed design. Beside the bed, an old-fashioned phone, and this one isn't just for show, it's how you actually call reception. Swapping the generic hotel phone for a vintage one that still does its job properly is a nice touch, and another reason to stop and look twice at something you'd normally never notice.

The bathroom

Then there's the toiletries. We picked up the hand soap and lotion, read the labels, and properly laughed out loud. Naturally we then went hunting through the shampoo and conditioner to see what they said too. Most hotels put real thought into their amenities range, the scent, the packaging, positioning it as a bit of luxury, but almost none of them try to make you laugh. RED did, and it turned a routine bathroom stop into something we're still talking about.

Why this is the example worth learning from

None of these individual touches would carry a hotel on their own. A kiwi in reception doesn't fix a bad night's sleep, and clever soap labels don't make up for a slow check-in. But that's not really what's happening here. What the Radisson RED nailed is consistency. The kiwi in the entrance, the artwork in the elevator, the water station in the hallway, the phone by the bed, the labels on the bottles. It's the same idea, repeated at every single touchpoint, until the whole stay feels considered rather than generic.

We say "it's in the details" often enough that it risks becoming background noise. This hotel is a great example of what the phrase actually means in practice. And it worked. Weeks later, this hotel is still coming up in conversation around the office. That's the actual measure of guest experience done well: the property is still living rent free in your guests' heads long after they've checked out.

You don't need a giant kiwi to do this

Most hotels aren't commissioning custom elevator artwork or hanging a sculpture in reception next quarter, and that's fine, because that's not really the lesson here. The lesson is that Radisson RED found a handful of moments most hotels walk straight past, and put an actual decision into each one instead of leaving it generic.

You don't need all five. One or two, done properly, will do more than people expect. A water station in the right spot solves a genuine problem on its own. The toiletries are one of the easiest places to add some actual personality, because it's something guests will physically pick up every single day they're with you. Even the phone is a lesson in itself: pick the option with a bit of character over the standard one, in a spot small enough that nobody needs to argue about it.