Shoreline Hotel Waikiki’s renovation aims to attract millennials

A picture is worth $4 million to Shoreline Hotel Waikiki, a boutique hotel that recently underwent a redesign to make itself more Instagram-worthy to attract millennials.

The 135-room property revealed its new theme — “Nature Meets Neon” — a contemporary interpretation of Hawaii’s colorful palette, during a grand- opening party last week. The design overhaul, which wrapped up July 1, took the hotel from Zen-like to funky and illuminated. There are at least eight photo backdrops, ensuring guests can post a new picture daily for social media followers who are following their technicolor vacation.

“We wanted this hotel to be one of the most ‘Instagramable’ hotels,” said Shoreline Hotel Waikiki General Manager Alvida Surpia-Jones. “Millennials already make up more than 50 percent of our customer base and with these changes we think that percentage will grow even more.”

It’s the second recent overhaul for the 342 Seaside Ave. property since owner Seaside Waikiki Hotel Fund LLC purchased it in 2012 from United Airlines. The property closed for an extensive renovation and reopened in 2013. Hotel management company Filament Hospitality joined the team at the end of 2015.

The Pew Research Center defines the millennial generation as those born between 1981 and 1996 — so the hotel is making its investment to target guests who range in age from 22 to 37.

Shoreline is currently running a $179 grand- opening special. However, its regular rate, which fluctuates from $219 for a basic room with city views to $359 for an ocean-view suite, is still on the more affordable side. That’s part of its appeal to younger travelers. Another draw is that millennials prefer boutique hotels, which tend to offer more diverse experiences, to hotel legacy brands, whose design and amenities tend to be the same across their destinations.

Jung Kim and his wife, Jeong Youn, a young married couple from Korea, said they were very satisfied with the colorful hotel. The pair were checking out on Wednesday but made sure to pause at the street-facing hot-pink and purple ombre entrance wall for one final snapshot.

“It was a very good hotel. We took lots of pictures to post on social media,” Kim said.

Other guests milled about the lobby, where they took pictures by the neon-aloha front desk sign, the neon- colored panama hat wall and a 26-foot-high 3D jungle wall made of white plastic fronds and made all the more interesting by neon- blue backlighting.

“I’ve been taking pictures since I got here,” said Rachael Leary, a 21-year-old Australian tourist who was visiting Hawaii for the first time along with her boyfriend, Jack Binns, 22. “The neon ‘Aloha’ sign at the lobby was very cute.”

The lobby’s bright neon- yellow high-back chairs are also a popular posing space along with the property’s updated rooftop pool deck, which features a commissioned mural painted by California artist DJ Neff, who has nearly 3,300 Instagram followers. The pool is illuminated nightly from 7 to 9 with various primary colors.

“We wanted to bring the neon colors that are found in the nature of Hawaii inside so that guests can continue their vibrant Hawaii vacations not only at the beach and shore, but at the Shoreline,” said Stephanie Metzger of New York-based BHDM Design, the property’s design firm.

Metzger said Shoreline is the latest BHDM Design client to get on the feature-wall trend.

“Millennials don’t register a memory anymore unless they take a picture,” she said. “If they don’t share it, it’s like it never happened. We are going after a young market that wants to show that they had an epic stay.”