Challenging hospitality’s long-held assumptions, Timothy Griffin shares why autonomy, emotional design and cultural relevance are shaping the future of hotels. From adaptive reuse and neuro-design to community-led spaces and lifestyle-driven experiences, Timothy explains how LEVEN is redefining what modern hospitality can look and feel like.
You’ve built your reputation on challenging traditional hospitality models – what do you think are the most outdated assumptions the hotel industry still holds today?
The biggest assumption I’d challenge is that guests need to be managed. Traditional hospitality often treats every interaction as a choreographed script, but modern travellers aren’t looking for a performance, they’re seeking autonomy and authenticity.
Beyond the service model, the industry is also plagued by intellectual silos. Hospitality frequently fails to draw timely insights from fast-moving sectors such as technology and retail. Areas like neuro-design and environmental psychology are often overlooked, despite the fact that built environments directly affect brain activity and emotional wellbeing, which in turn influence consumer behaviour and purchasing decisions that ultimately impact the bottom line.
The industry’s approach to data, and its lack of technological agility, is also holding it back. Most hotel businesses remain tethered to deep-rooted legacy systems while other industries have pivoted to seamless cloud ecosystems. Retailers use data to predict what we want before we know it ourselves. In contrast, hotels often still struggle to recognise returning guests or remember details such as pillow preferences or a favourite drink from a previous stay.
With LEVEN, you’ve taken a distinctly different approach to hotel design and guest experience. What principles guide your decisions when reimagining what a hotel can be?
LEVEN is derived from Old English and Dutch words meaning “to live”, and that remains our guiding philosophy. We aren’t just designing hotel rooms, we’re creating environments for living.
Design is the physical manifestation of brand values, but its impact is visceral. If a space doesn’t resonate intuitively on an emotional level, the style itself becomes irrelevant.
In Manchester, this translated into a philosophy centred on consciously building upon the heritage of the property in the heart of Manchester’s Village. We honoured the warehouse’s industrial bones, brick, steel and timber, while layering them with tactile textures, natural stone, wood, soft fabrics, and a curated collection of more than 300 artworks to create a distinctive residential feel.
The combination of natural materials, considered lighting, and calming colour palettes was all intended to put guests at ease. We wanted LEVEN to bridge the gap between home and hotel: flexible check-in times, complimentary smoothies to go, and even the LEVEN socks in each room all contribute to an experience that feels more personal and less transactional than a traditional hotel stay.
Sustainability is often discussed in operational terms, but how do you integrate it into the design philosophy and identity of a hotel from the ground up?
At LEVEN, we start from the premise that the most sustainable building is the one that already exists. Adaptive reuse isn’t just an architectural decision; it’s both a moral and brand-led one.
If you are making genuinely good design decisions, they are inherently sustainable. Integrity in materials, longevity in aesthetic, and energy efficiency are the true antidotes to the fast-furniture culture that has become commonplace across the industry.
As a founder and investor, how do you balance commercial viability with bold, disruptive ideas that may initially feel risky to the market?
The industry often miscalculates risk. The truly risky position is doing exactly what everyone else is doing and hoping the market doesn’t shift beneath you.
What was considered niche or boutique five years ago is now one of the industry’s primary growth engines. Alongside scaling our successful LEVEN hotel platform, we are also developing brands within the budget and hostel sectors.
For disruptive ideas to succeed, innovation must be paired with rigour. Every bold concept needs defensible commercial logic behind it. We spend a great deal of time understanding guests on a psychographic rather than purely demographic level, identifying unmet needs and considering how we can solve genuine problems within the market. When you build a brand that resonates culturally, commercial viability tends to follow.
Looking ahead, what does the next generation of hospitality look like to you, and how should hotel brands evolve to stay relevant?
The next decade belongs to hotels that function as community anchors. Emerging generations of travellers are becoming too sophisticated to be persuaded by generic marketing language that lacks genuine local soul.
We are already seeing the gradual dissolution of boundaries between hospitality, retail, work, wellness, and social connection. Our current focus on alternative accommodation and mixed-use models is a direct response to this shift.
To remain relevant, hotel brands must think beyond being simply places to stay overnight and instead become essential components of both a guest’s lifestyle and a neighbourhood’s ecosystem.