Hotel asks consumers to sell it their furniture

Dutch hospitality group La Bergère is developing a new hotel in Maastricht, dubbed Hotel X for the time being, and is going to decorate it using furniture and knick-knacks purchased from ordinary consumers. The underlying concept for Hotel X is described as “style, sex and soup”, which—in a nutshell—stands for design, attraction and authenticity. To find unique furniture and nostalgic elements that will create the desired look and atmosphere, Hotel X is calling on people to rummage through their attics, spare rooms and garages, and offer their unused objects for sale. People can upload a picture of the item they’d like to sell, along with a short description and their asking price. To give a sense of what they’re looking for, www.stijlsexensoep.nl shows examples for a wide array of categories, from chairs and tables to art, ceramics, posters, ‘collections’, boardgames and even plants (cacti, preferably). While authenticity and nostalgia are design styles that hotels have been adopting for a while, this is an unusually clever way both to find remarkable pieces, and to garner interest in the hotel before it opens. Moreover, by encouraging people to look for cash in the attic, it taps into a very of-the-moment trend that our sister site trendwatching.com calls sellsumers: a recession-induced need for cash is fuelling concepts that help consumers make money instead of just spending it. (Related: Qbic, a high design, low touch hotel, which is also part of the La Bergère Group.)