Bashar Wali: A Hotel is JUST a Building

Photo Credit: Michael Kleinberg

Hotelier Bashar Wali’s latest observations on hospitality industry, best design practices discussing how A Hotel is JUST a Building

This is an in-person event. Attendees will be required to show proof of vaccination along with proof of identification. Please read and check the agreement and safety boxes in the registration. Additional information regarding general event information and check-in process will be emailed directed to registrants 24 hours before the event.

AIALA Committee: Interior Architecture

CES Learning Units: 1 LU

Self-described “neurotic hotelier” Bashar Wali shares his well earned perspective on what makes Hotels more than just a Building. How architecture, design, art, and service work magically together to create this feeling we call Hospitality. Bashar will focus on visitor experience and experiential design in the light of Covid19 pandemic, its effects on the industry, the meaning of Humancentric Design, the newfound need for indoor / outdoor space connections, privacy and the so-called Hybrid Human.

Moderator:

Severine Tatangelo, Principal, StudioPCH
Severine completed her studies of Architecture in France in 2003. She jumpstarted her architectural career when a twist of fate brought her to iconic California in 2003. Since then she’s traveled the world to spread her passion for design and architecture, mostly in high-end hospitality. It is there where she feels that she contributes to the human evolution by setting new trends. At Studio PCH Severine sets the example with her fearless nature and self-made entrepreneurial character. There is no risk she is unwilling to take.

Presenter:

Bashar Wali
My People used to say, when a stranger appears at your door, feed him for three days before asking who he is, where he’s come from, where he’s headed. That way, he’ll have strength enough to answer. Or, by then you’ll be such good friends, you don’t care.

Bashar Wali is a founder, a father, and a hotel fanatic. He’s a pragmatist—hungry to experience life not as it is packaged and sold, but as it is. His vested interest in hospitality, culture, and design, is cut with curiosity of what’s possible, beyond the status quo.

Bashar is always looking for that spark—that perfect symmetry of an idea and its physical manifestation—to make human experiences as we know them, better. He’s the host of the soiree—ever in pursuit of a shared humanity among friends, colleagues, and total strangers. This is perhaps his greatest gift: bringing together a group that’s more inspiring than the sum of its parts.

As founder and CEO of This Assembly and Practice Hospitality, Bashar draws upon expertise honed over a 30-year career in hospitality. An expert in the lifestyle space, Bashar is known for pushing limits in his philosopher-meets-hotelier kind of way. Whether helming the TEDx stage, hosting a Global YPO event, or collaborating on Clubhouse, Bashar’s message is unwavering: service is what you deliver, hospitality is how you make people feel.

Bashar has done every job in a hotel—from frying an egg to negotiating a deal—working for Starwood Hotels before leading acquisitions and development globally at Grand Heritage Hotels. Prior to launching This Assembly and Practice Hospitality, Bashar served as President/CEO of Provenance Hotels, where he remains a partner, for 15 years, growing the company from five to 15 hotels, 1,500 team members, and expanding the collection from the Pacific Northwest to an award-winning national brand, with annual revenue in excess of $150 million.

When Bashar isn’t traveling to 50+ countries and 45+ states, he’s home in Portland, Oregon with his wife and kids, dreaming up the hotels of tomorrow.

Learning Objectives:
+ Role of design in experiential journey of a hotel visitor
+ The do’s and don’t of hotel design: outline best and worst design features from your experiences as a hotelier and a traveler
+ Cultural impacts: describe how different cultures approach hospitality and how can design support positive human interactions
+ As a hotelier and manager, which new trends do you see in the hospitality industry, as a direct impact of the COVID 19 pandemic and can you share future projections?