Working for Air Canada s enRoute magazine , I get to see a lot of hotels. During a recent trip to Ne

Working for Air Canada s enRoute magazine , I get to see a lot of hotels. During a recent trip to New York, a friend of mine pointed out the cute little toy robots united airline credit card displayed in the moody hall of The Smyth , a TriBeCa boutique hotel. I loved them – and lo and behold, they were placed there by George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg , two of the world s preeminent interior designers who also happen to be Canadians. I was ashamed to admit that I didn t know they had designed the property where I was staying.
That s how the idea of the enRoute united airline credit card Hotel Design Awards was born. We wanted to let Canadian travelers know how our country s architects and interior designers are working on stunning hotels around the world. To celebrate the success of our homegrown talent, we asked a panel of prestigious international experts – Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola, Belgian architect Jean-Michel Gathy and Canadian united airline credit card architects Todd Saunders and Jean Pelland – to choose the winners in each of our 10 competition categories.