Course 01 · Category design
Design Your Hospitality Unicorn
Define your category, design the guest transformation and build a design system for your project.
Not a prerecorded course you buy and never finish. A small working cohort where designers, operators and investors turn category strategy into a shared direction for a real project.
Four Wednesdays · 2026
- 28October
- 4November
- 11November
- 18November
10 AM–noonPacific
1–3 PMEastern
Live online Eight seats Two hours each week
A brand decides who you compete with. A category decides whether you have any competition at all.
The premise
The problem
Data can optimize the known. It can’t invent the unfamiliar.
When every project begins with the same comp set, trend report and amenity checklist, stays suffer from the crisis of sameness.
- 01
Convergence
The same inputs produce the same property with different pillows.
- 02
Substitution
Guests see one stay as easily swapped for another. Because it is.
- 03
Price erosion
When the difference is cosmetic, rate becomes the only meaningful lever.
You leave with
Not a mood board. A decision system.
Four live working sessions, each building a tangible part of your project. Wednesdays, 10:00 AM–12 noon Pacific / 1:00–3:00 PM Eastern. Bring your decisions into the jam sessions and leave with work you can use.
01 · The category
The perception you intend to own
A clear statement of the perception your project will own, the category it will define and why guests should recognize it as a distinct choice.
02 · The guest
The transformation behind the booking
A sharper answer than age, income or “nature lover”: the change your guest needs the destination to make possible.
03 · The design system
The principles that hold the destination together
A coherent design system connecting category strategy and guest transformation to the physical and digital decisions that shape the destination.
04 · The application
A plan for your project
Apply your design system to a real project decision, from site selection and design through development, launch and operations.
Bring the decision your project needs next.
Apply for a seat
The price of getting it right
One avoided redesign can cover the entire workshop.
Four live sessions. A category strategy, guest transformation and design system for your project. $1,500 to make the decisions before you pay to undo them.
| Decision | The expensive blunder | What category design clarifies | Estimated acquisition / build cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Land acquisition | Buy land that cannot deliver the design concept you develop after acquisition. | Develop your design concept and test whether the land can deliver it before buying. | $250,000One land purchase |
| Build type | Buy three structures that cannot deliver your design concept. | Choose the build type around the guest transformation it must deliver. | $300,0003 × $100,000 |
| Infrastructure | Install roads and utilities before resolving how the site needs to work. | Plan access, utilities and guest movement as one system. | $150,000Roads, utilities and site works |
| Site plan | Pay for a layout that cannot deliver the design concept. | Give the design team a shared direction before paying for drawings. | $25,000One coordinated site plan |
| Interiors | Furnish three units before defining what the stay needs to make possible. | Give every purchase a job in delivering the guest transformation. | $45,0003 × $15,000 |
| Total acquisition + development budget | $770,000 | ||
Now suppose correcting decisions you didn’t plan through adds 18% to that budget.
- Acquire + build
- $770,000513.3× the workshop tuition
- Correct poor planning · 18%
- $138,60092.4× the workshop tuition
- The entire workshop
- $1,500Four live working sessions
The workshop costs 0.2% of the acquisition budget and 1.1% of the correction bill. Work through the concept before committing the capital.
Illustrative three-unit budget. Acquisition amounts are explicit planning assumptions. The 18% correction allowance is a chosen scenario, not a measured failure rate or a promise of savings.
Budget assumptions, industry context and calculation
This is one example budget for three guest units, not a set of market averages. It assumes a single land purchase, three installed guest structures, shared site infrastructure, a coordinated site plan and furnishings for all three units. The structure allowance excludes the infrastructure, planning and furnishings counted separately below. Taxes, financing, pre-opening operations and other project-specific costs are outside this illustration.
- Land acquisition: 1 × $250,000 = $250,000. One land purchase.
- Build type: 3 × $100,000 = $300,000. Guest structures, delivery and installation.
- Infrastructure: 1 × $150,000 = $150,000. Roads, utilities and site works.
- Site plan: 1 × $25,000 = $25,000. One coordinated site plan.
- Interiors: 3 × $15,000 = $45,000. Furnishings and equipment.
$770,000 × 18% = $138,600 in additional correction spending. The 18% assumption illustrates the consequence of poor planning; it is not an industry statistic.
For broader context, Glamping Show Americas’ 2025 report reports average startup funding of $1,511,600 among respondents (page 14). That survey covers different property sizes; it does not establish an average for a three-unit development or the individual allowances above.
Who belongs in the room
People making decisions
while they are still cheap.
This is early-stage work by design. The course has the most leverage before form, features and capital harden a weak concept into an expensive one.
Founders + operators
Defining a new stay, repositioning an existing one or trying to understand why “beautiful” has not become defensible.
Designers + architects
Who want the project brief to carry a strategic point of view—not just a style reference and an amenity count.
Developers + investors
Who need a better way to evaluate differentiation before historical performance data exists.
Graduates receive priority admission to the Website Lab. Category Design is not a hard prerequisite—the better question is whether your positioning is coherent enough to survive translation into a site.
A working room
Bring a project. Be ready to question it.
Your instructor
Janice Wilson
I teach every session live.
I’m the founder and operator of Menizei, the luxury forest retreat on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula where I put category design to work. Forest Cocooning® shapes the destination—from the site plan and guest trails to the rituals and experiences guests come for.
I’m a Columbia Law graduate with a background in real estate law, development analysis and land-use planning. I’ve managed financial analysis and legal work for $42 million in mixed-use development projects and serve on the Clallam County Planning Commission. I connect the guest promise to the land, capital and construction decisions behind it.
I’ve presented on destination design at the Vacation Rental Design Summit, Eco Resort Network and Glamping Show Americas. In this workshop, I’ll help you turn your category and guest transformation into a design system you can use through site selection, development, launch and operations.
Apply for the autumn cohort
Bring your project.
Help shape the room.
Janice personally reviews applications from operators, designers, architects, investors and developers. Places are limited to eight, with an aim of four operators and four designers. Apply to be considered for the autumn cohort.
Live attendance in all four sessions is required. Applying is free; accepted applicants receive payment instructions.
Apply for a seat →