The Only Thing College-Like In These College Themed Hotels Is A Painting Of A Red Solo Cup

A new brand of hotels aims to bring consumers back to the days of college.

Have you ever wanted to go back to college – you know, to relive the glory days when you received your first taste of freedom? We’ve all through about it at least once, right? Well, a new hotel brand aims to take consumers back, but their approach seems to be lacking – a lot in our humble opinions.

Graduate Hotels, a venture between AJ Capital Partners of Chicago and Hong Kong-based Gaw Capital Partners, plans to open 20 boutique-like hotels over the next five years in communities near major college campuses, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Officials with AJ Capital Partners say the goal of the hotels, the first of which are set to open this fall in Tempe, AZ, home of Arizona State University and Athens, GA, home of the University of Georgia, is to appeal to consumers coming back to the area for sporting events, reunions and campus visits.

While the concept is interesting, the execution seems to be sorely lacking when it comes to actually evoking the college experience. So far the only college-like aspects include nods to school spirit, team colors and, as depicted in one promotional photo, a painting of a red solo cup.

This is what one of the rooms in the Athens, GA, Graduate Hotel will look like.

Everyone’s college experience is different, but I for one picture nights of studying punctuated by others filled with bar visits and a never-ending supply of dirty laundry on the floor, not mismatched patterns and brightly colored walls.

Of course, no hotel that wants to actually make money would purposely stain the carpet with beer and pile textbooks on top of desks, but Graduate Hotels’ concept to include a bar and restaurant and locally inspired art collections just sounds like all the other hotels on the market.

The hotel in Athens will include rooms with vintage ceramic lamps in the shape of the University of Georgia’s mascot and album covers from local bands including REM (because it’s apparently 1990).

In Tempe, the Wall Street Journal describes a giant ant farm behind the front desk that is supposed to represent the school’s popular social insects program. While that may be representative of part of the university, it doesn’t make me think Sun Devils.

Future Graduate Hotels are planned for the University of Virginia’s Charlottesville, VA, the University of Indiana’s Bloomington, IN, and the University of Wisconsin’s Madison, WI.

Hotel Chain Gives It the Old College Try [The Wall Street Journal]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist