EMOTIONAL DESIGN AND EMBU LANDSCAPES FOR AN APPEALING INTERIOR DESIGN OF YOELIGEN HOTEL IN EMBU.

“Guest emotions” refers to emotions that are experienced by hotel guests and evoked by hotels. The growing evidence in the strong influence of customer emotions has resulted in an increasing recognition on the importance of eliciting positive guest emotions and staging memorable experiences for hotel guests. Some researchers advocate the importance of design in achieving emotional impact for hotel stays, guest loyalty and service excellence. Another researcher states, “Innovative experience design will become a critical component of any successful hotel company’s core capability.” Researchers also call for a more in-depth understanding about guest emotions and guest experiences in order to inform design and decisions that bring about positive guest emotions. (LO, 2007)
This research aimed to determine ways to effectively implement emotional design in the design of hospitality spaces in; the interior architecture, furniture design, exhibition & display and landscape design. The researcher sought to achieve emotional design by using nature inspired African design in the interior design of the hotel. Further, the researcher sought to incorporate the theme of sustainability in the landscape design by the use of recycled pallet products.
The researcher reviewed relevant literature on the three philosophies; emotional design, nature based African design and Recycling wood, so as to come up with well suited solutions for the case study. The case study of this research was Yoeligen Hotel which is located in Embu town. The methodology employed in this study was qualitative case study as the researcher aimed to investigate the interior design of the hotel and its emotional value to the users. Based on the data collected on the field, the researcher made analysis of the findings and proposed recommendations towards developing emotional designed spaces.