The trends governing lifestyle environment changes and a guide to understanding them
Launched during the Salon du Meuble de Paris 2006, DOMOVISION ® is a result of an initiative of the Board of Trustees of the UNIFA (National Union of French Furniture Industries) to offer this business segment's professionals a prospective reflection and trend-identification tool that will help them anticipate the important evolutions of the markets, and adapt their strategic positioning and trade, depending on the evolution of the competitive context, on both national and international levels. Under the direction of Gérard LAIZE, CEO of VIA, designed jointly with Frédéric LOEB, of &LOEB Innovation, this program is financed by the CODIFA (Committee for the Development of French Furniture Industries) and introduces two specific approaches. On the one hand, it constitutes an operational summary of the information and skills of the different organizations serving the profession: The IPEA (Promotion and Studies in Furnishing Institute) for market data, the VIA (Valorisation of Innovation in Furnishing) for the qualitative analysis of the behavioural changes of our contemporaries and the design trends of the times, the FCBA/Innovathèque for monitoring new materials, technologies and manufacturing processes, as well as validating quality, safety and ergonomics standards... On the other hand, the training that is offered exclusively by AFPIA Adéquation, allows operational accompaniment for companies. Over the past two years, some 35 companies have already benefited from this contribution and support. Taking a general approach regarding lifestyle, the 2008 edition deals with the growing ‘Out Of Home' market. It offers many opportunities for French companies regarding design as well as production. This is also an opportunity to present the study on the new measurements in the sitting position conducted by the IFTH, and to analyze their impact on the furniture industry, which should bring about a priority in the renewal of the seating offer. Finally, in a market context that privileges the search for the distinction of brand image positioning and the need to personalize the offer, it seems essential for all who for all those who are confronted with choices in terms of materials, colors and finishes to handle the main principles of preparing colour ranges.
Another new feature is that this tool now a complementary web site, www.domovision.fr , where information will be permanently updated, and can be accessed through a subscription.

Out Of Home - An essential market for the lifestyle industry
The investment essentially dedicated to fixed assets, therefore to furniture and lifestyle environment, represents 7% of the turn over for the hotel industry and 3% for the food service industry. Between the creation of new establishments and changes of ownership, the renovation of hotel and food service facilities represents a very large sales volume for the lifestyle environment businessman to seize. As far as the French B2B market is concerned, it seems to be mature, with a gradual evolution toward dropping the standardization of the bought offer. Establishments want to become increasingly unique and customized. The yearly Out Of Home (OOH) equipment and re-equipment market potential is fundamental for the economic health and growth of the equipment and lifestyle segment businessman. The example of the hotel industry in France is enough to convince even the most dubious: from an average of 6,000 Euros for a room in a two-star hotel, to 18,000 Euros for a four-star hotel in France. In other words, a total yearly market potential of 300 million Euros, and nearly 4.3 thousand million Euros globally, for France only. According to the INSEE, the French National Institute for Statistics and Economics Studies, the OOH segment, which includes all forms of lodging and food services, groups together over 195,000 companies, and employs over 865,000 people, which represents 70% of the jobs and 60% of the sales of private services. This segment's growth in sales is in line with the natural slope of services, in other words, a regular increase of from 3 to 5% per year over the last few years. The French hotel facilities groups together somewhat less than 17,600 classified establishments, and less than 12,000 non-classified establishments. Over 800 additional high-class establishments have open between 1994 and 2007; the most dynamic segment being that of the four-star and higher hotels. 600,000 Bed and Breakfast facilities are also officially registered, as well as 1,300 residential hotels, as compared to 500 twelve years ago. The global context is very dynamic. For the fourth consecutive year, sales of the hotel circuit reached summits in 2006, with over 230 thousand million dollars, an increase of 12.4 % as compared to 2005. In China alone, the hotel and food service market increased by 16% between 2005 and 2006, with global sales of 100 thousand million dollars!
Fulfilling the new expectations of different customers
The French hotel industry's image seems to be set in time. 42% of customers find that it is aging and 41% declare that they are tired of the installations' uniformity. Apart from the notion of “comfort” (physical comfort, cleanliness, quiet and quality of services), the furnishings are also part of the customers' expectations. 41% of travellers, and 2/3 of women, state that they are sensitive to the hotels' design and furnishings. Aside from the very high-class range and a few ‘boutique-hotels', the profession seems to suffer from lack of inventiveness, and nothing resembles an independent hotel more than... another independent hotel.
The stakes of lifestyle for Out Of Home
Lodging and food away from home have evolved from the origins of man through time, following the evolution of the ways of life, in accordance with customs and rites. The organization of hotels and restaurants is a sort of spatial metaphorical representation of the evolutions of society and the relations between the different social classes.
Today, we live in a society of travel and speed. As a result of globalization and increasingly effective means of transport, the number of citizens of the world, new nomads increases constantly. Well-educated and connoisseur, accustomed to the increasingly comfortable Western lodgings as well as to the restaurants' constantly improving quality-price ratio, the Customer-King has never been better named. Regardless of his category, family or professional, his demands are growing constantly. A good concept is not enough to satisfy the “regular” customers, who are essential to ensure the longevity of an establishment. It must renew itself constantly to live. In an attempt to approach the stakes of lifestyle away from home, the Domovision OOH focus, simplifying the complexity of reality, has designed an “ideal” hotel with a restaurant that is open toward the city, a lobby that transmits the image of the establishment, while also managing the flow efficiently and discretely, meeting rooms where the feeling of being enclosed has been lessened, rooms that are more comfortable than home, with a “bathroom / spa” as a natural extension. Schematically, without going into too much detail, this imaginary hotel endeavours to summarize the needs, motivations, habits and attitudes of today's private or professional customers. In another aspect, Domovision puts forth questions, underlining four major factors of the evolution of lodging and hospitality away from home: an international prospect of “even” more luxurious, another one of “even” bigger and... cheaper, taking into account ecology as an engine of development, and finally the need to create a multifaceted offer to answer the customers' new “need of an experience”. The Out Of Home facilities often bring to light the coming lifestyle trends. From that point of view, it can be considered as a truely experimental field. Customers discover, get accustomed to, request or reject a new design, a new spatial configuration in a restaurant, a hotel or a café. And when it is the customers who have requested the new design, they even transpose it to their own home environment. Even if it is often necessary to apply a good amount of curiosity and tenacity to infiltrate the mysteries of the OOH circuits, they represent a true opportunity for the businessmen and designers of the housing equipment sector.
OOH/TRANSPORT specialized studies and reports
Coach Omnium / www.coachomnium.com
MKG Studies / www.mkg-group.com
&Loeb Innovation / www.loeb-innovation.fr
Le Livre Blanc du Comité pour la Modernisation de l'Hôtellerie Française (2007) (The White Book of the Committee on the Modernisation of the French Hotel Industry): www.comitemodernisation.org
Prospective Observatory of the VIA / www.via.fr

New measurements
During the French National Measurement Campaign* conducted in 2003-2005, the IFTH was able to update the existing French morphological data and establish new ones. For example, the average size of a French man in 2005 was 1.756m (with a standard deviation of 8.3) and weighed 77.4 kg, which are 5.6m and 5.4 kg more than in 1970. The average size of a French woman was 1.625 m (with a standard deviation of 6.8), and she weighed 62.4 kg, which are 2.1 and 1.8 kg more than in 1970. The ratio of “tall” (1.81 m on average) and “very tall” (1.91 m on average) people has gone from 10% to more than 39% in 35 years! Obesity, a true ill of our contemporary civilizations, is in constant progression. 26% of the French overweight, 8.3% are obese. And what about back pains that has been described as the ill of the century? Observation of our contemporaries has proven to what extent everything becomes too small for tall people, too tight for fat people, inadequate for an aging population or for the new behaviours that are induced, in particular, by the information technologies and ‘urban nomadism'. Therefore, whether it is at home, at work or during our displacements, in each of our daily activities, are the sizing standards of the elements – seats, beds, working areas...– that make up our lifestyle all adequate? Domovision's document, « New Measurements », offers a summary of the data from the National Measurement Campaign, as well as many ideas for thought regarding the design of products related to lifestyle.
This study was the subject of an « Anthropometric Box Set »** created by the IFTH, which presents, among others, 63 standing and 28 sitting measurements, as well as the regression coefficients that can be useful for anticipating the measurements. This box set is essential for all the sectors concerned: transport, household or office furnishings, street, medical, leisure furniture, maintenance equipment... unavoidable when designing all types of seating. With this same state of mind, the « Innovation, design and ergonomics monitoring » service of the FCBA*** input this new anthropomorphic data into its simulation and modelling tool in order to make it possible to better take into account ergonomics when designing new products, as well as an increased guarantee that the product will be adequate for the morphological and physiological diversity of its future users. *The 2003-2005 National Measurement Campaign was launched under the initiative of the UFIH (French Union of Clothing Industries), supported financially by the Défi (tax collecting organisation for the parafiscal tax on Clothing) and performed by the IFTH, the French Institute for Textile and Clothing. Two 3D measurement cabins travelled for 2 years throughout France. 11,562 people, from 5 to 70 years old, were measured. The cabins went to 37 sites in all regions of France in order to comply with the requested quotas set as to respect the representativeness.
IFTH Contact: Patrick Robinet - Phone: +33 (0)2 41 49 52 70
Email: probinet@ifth.org - www.ifth.org
** “Anthropometric Box Set” IFTH
Information and order: Patrick Robinet - Phone: +33 (0)2 41 49 52 70 - Email: probinet@ifth.org - www.ifth.org
***FCBA Institute of Technology (Forest, Cellulose, Construction-wood and Furniture) www.fcba.fr

Chromatic methodology
Influence of colour on lifestyle trends
Present everywhere in our everyday life, color is taken for granted and, surprisingly, is still widely ignored by most of us.
However, color:
• classifies our emotions (pink / pleasure, red / passion, black / mourning),
• participates in our everyday choices (clothing, surrounding objects),
• sets codes (red for what is forbidden),
• evokes feelings (love, fear),
• creates atmospheres (gentleness, isolation) or stories (ethnic),
• calls to mind social and economic values (diamond, caviar, scarlet),
• points to the ecological environment (blue gold of water, black gold of oil),
• generates collective beliefs in accordance with the era and the culture.
Color, which is what the consumer first perceives when confronted with an object, is a strong emotional vector and an element of identification with its own associations. In order to understand its effects, to grasp its harmonic laws, Domovision delves into the role of color in our day-to-day life, into its communicational values and its different potential. Hues, materials, shapes and names are elements of our everyday environment, reminding us of the extent to which colour influences human sensitivity and buying behaviour.

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VIA / Camille Ascencio-Parvy
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Email : via@mobilier.com
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www.domovision.fr

Formation information
AFPIA Adéquation – Sophie Audugé
Telephone : +33 (0)5 56 52 63 69
Email : sauduge@mac.com

Conference nformation
VIA / Cédric Alban
Telephone :+33 (0)1 46 28 11 11
Email : alban@mobilier.com

Press information
VIA / Pauline Lacoste
Telephone : +33 (0)1 46 28 11 11
Email : via.assistantcom@mobilier.com