Mondrian South Beach Miami Hotel - Innovation in Tough Times

Tough times call for "out of the box" thinking and solutions. Sure the phrase and term "out of the box" seems to rub many the wrong way as being on the list of top ten over used cliches, but in reality no other phrase truly captures the essence of innovation and non-conventional thinking. With that being said, the Mondrian South Beach Hotel of Miami is doing just that type of problem solving.

In an attempt to both monetize and service it's customers the hotel has introduced a novel and simple addition to its hotel offerings. The offering, none other than a boutique vending machine of course. Sure, the image of a vending machine in a hotel conjures up images of candy bars, over priced ice cream bars, single packets of aspirin and other necessities and sweet snacks that hardly make one think of a five star hotel.

That's the very point, however, in this epic drama today. The vending machine offered in the Mondrian South Beach Hotel is all about delivering an image of high class. The machines only take plastic for payment and the goods offered don't include the usual vending machine goodies. In this machine you'll find things like 24-karat gold handcuffs, retro Atari Classic video games for the Playstation and top fashion t-shirts.

The move comes in the face of expanding 24 hour retailing with not only avoiding the addition of overhead costs, but actually reducing such direct expense in response to recent trends that have shown a continual decline in hotel gift shop sales.

In the opinion of this writer, moves like this are very exciting and offer the very needed silver lining in an overwhelming cluster of thunder clouds and stormy weather. There is no doubt that many other innovations and non-conventional ideas like this will continue to come to market as the economy responds to the current dire reality. All I have to say is kudos to the Mondrian South Beach Hotel management and decision makers.