Over the last few years as our travels increased, I decided to latch on to one of the loyalty memberships and with a wide spectrum of choices from budget to ultra-luxury, Accor suited the most. The ease of redemption, special treatment for direct booking and some great locations has been the USP so far.

With higher tiers come higher rewards & it was time to experience a little bit of this when we stayed at the Ibis New Delhi Aerocity.

I was pleasantly surprised to have received an email before the trip asking me if I would like to upgrade to one of the “MyRoom” and confirming that it would be complimentary. Accor launched the concept few months ago and has accelerated its implementation across geographies. “MyRoom” are select rooms re-designed by the employees of the hotel for the guests and the group aims to cash-in with additional charges for such rooms. In India, these rooms are slowly being rolled out starting with Novotel & Ibis at Aerocity New Delhi.

“MyRoom” involves concepts developed and personalized by individuals based on an eclectic combination of their interests, a particular aesthetic leaning or a regional affinity. I was told that our options are Music, Rajasthani, Boxing, Bollywood or Vintage. We opted for Rajasthani or Vintage and both were unavailable when we reached the front desk for check-in. We were given the aqua themed room. The hotel has seven such themed rooms, all located on the dedicated members floor.

The aqua themed room was an interesting twist, going away from the standard mix of red themed rooms of Ibis. The room was colored aqua blue with a brown anchor designed near the TV and there was a wall clock in the shape of the wheel of a ship. The neatly laid out bed and bedding also had a twist with different set of pillow covers and framed photographs in the background. An open showcase next to the window and curtains matching the theme of the room add up to the décor.

The hotel claims that the concept was introduced to have a “Feel Welcome” spirit to make guests feel at home and the “Feel Valued” spirit that guides the operational teams at Ibis.

I have a penchant for everything standardized, a tried and tested mould while TW (The Wife) likes to explore and get out of the mould which could be drab after a while. But in general, we lean to minimal being wary of several shades being used together and this was one example where for a change we both liked the room as per our taste. When a lot of elements are wedded together it is easy to make a mess of things and hopefully Accor would avoid it.

I hope we get to stay at more such rooms and explore the local culture and a difference in the rooms. However, we both laugh at the “Feel at home” concept of hotels. The whole idea of staying in the hotel is to enjoy the hotel and stay away from home!