Ireland gets its first ‘Dyson hotel’

The Blue Haven Hotel in Kinsale is to become Ireland's first Dyson hotel, the announcement says. What on earth is a "Dyson hotel" when it's at home?

Is it an architectural style involving a huge curved-glass front, mirroring the appearance of the clear-plastic no-bag vacuum canister? Do the corridors snake around, with accordion-style grey walls, like a giant suction hose? Is the reception desk designed to mimic the distinctive bulge of the grey-and-yellow hand dyers?

No, sadly: no such gloriously mad design vision. More down to earth but still downright odd-sounding. The Blue Haven Hotel has teamed up with Dyson to incorporate the household-appliance company's products throughout the hotel, including air purifiers, lighting, vacuum cleaners, hairdryers and hand dryers. This makes it the third such "Dyson hotel", following the Rosewood Hotel in London and Pier One in Sydney (and more are on the way, apparently).

So how does that work? How do you get to be a Dyson hotel?

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The Blue Haven is an older building, and was trying to solve the challenges of air quality and the regulation of heating, so they approached Dyson, says Ciaran Fitzgerald, director of the hotel. They were using the company's purifier heaters in public spaces in the hotel and were delighted with them, so made a proposal that they adopt Dyson technology throughout. Little did the Blue Haven know, but the "Dyson hotels" idea was already in the can.

“They did a site visit, and we tweaked the agreement,” says Fitzgerald. And almost faster than you can air-dry your hands it was done and dusted (with a vacuum).

So now hand-helds buzz around the place, doing interim cleaning, the reception has the distinctive lighting system, and the rooms have fancy purifier heaters and Supersonic hairdryers to beat the band. They’re especially pleased with the heater: a guest can specify – when they book! – precisely what temperature they’d like their room to be.

Sounds like a win for the Blue Haven – practically and for marketing – and a win for Dyson, which gets tons of exposure. So who paid whom?

Fitzgerald is cagey on that one. “We can’t disclose the detail,” he says. But who pays for all the stuff? “They didn’t give it to us, but it is working well for both parties and is commercially viable for both. Dyson looked after us extremely well.”

They're clearly on top of the tech at the boutique hotel in the heart of Kinsale, 25 minutes from Cork city. The hotel also has a deal with CompuB for Apple TVs in all the bedrooms, and iPads are offered to guests on check-in, as it "continues to improve guests' experience, by thinking outside the box, while maintaining and respecting the unique character and history of the Blue Haven".

And, more conventionally, it was also named best boutique hotel in Ireland at the Irish Hospitality Awards 2017.