#Trending This Week - Motels Are Having A Moment, Hotel Lobbies As Profit Centers, Sustainable Tourism, Luxury Travel, And 2024's Most Popular Destinations
Issue 191 • May 21, 2024
This will be a short week as everyone looks to make the most out of the unofficial first weekend of the summer: Memorial Day Weekend coming up. For many people globally, summer means vacation season and we have some news on the MOST POPULAR TRAVEL SPOTS FOR 2024 — it’s actually looking to be a record year. HOTEL LOBBIES AS PROFIT CENTERS? Hotels are really revving up the hotel lobby with a wide variety of entertainment and food and beverage attractions — including cool pop-up bars — to keep guests inside the hotel and attract locals as well. LUXURY TRAVEL is seeing a shift. Some people are moving away from the more popular — and pricey — destinations, while those who are staying and paying the higher rates are also checking-in with much higher expectations in terms of service and quality. AMERICAN MOTELS ARE HAVING A MOMENT. The once seedy roadside accommodations are being reinvigorated as boutique brands are coming in and making them chic and cool (and yes, the paper-wrapped plastic cups are long gone!). And finally there is so much buzz lately about SUSTAINABLE TOURISM, but do people really know what it means? It’s much more than reusing your towels in a hotel every day. The concept now extends to tourism’s impact on the residents of a destination as well as the environment. Check it all out in our three-minute read below.
Making Hotel Lobbies A Healthy Profit Center
Hotel lobbies are back and better than ever. Lobbies are attracting guests with new food and drink concoctions at their bars and restaurants, inviting in pop-up bars, easy-to-use mini markets, art exhibits, entertainment centers, and just about anything you can imagine all in a bid to keep guests inside, attract locals to the hotel, and turn the lobby into a profit center. Read more in CoStar here.
The Shift In Luxury Travel
Travel advisors who specialize in the luxury market are starting to see signs of a shift. First, there is a move away from high-priced destinations such as Italy and toward destinations where clients can get more for their money. Secondly for guests who are paying the incredibly high luxury rates many properties are charging, they are arriving with equally high expectations about service. Gen Z and Millennials currently account for roughly 30% of global luxury spending, significantly increasing their share of that market from a year earlier, and hoteliers are facing increased pressure to wow them. Read more in Travel Weekly here.
The Most Popular Places To Travel In 2024
Americans are traveling overseas in record numbers this year. According to a new report from Mastercard, nine out of the last 10 record-setting spending days in the global cruise and airline industry were, in fact, this year. Some of the destinations that are trending right now are those where once-in-a-lifetime events are happening, whether it’s a Taylor Swift concert, an international soccer tournament, or a solar eclipse. At the top of the list for this summer is Munich, (host to the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship), Bali; Bangkok; and Nice, France. Read more in Travel + Leisure here.
American Motels Are Having A Moment
It’s cool to stay at an American motel again. Yes, it really is! There are now new-age renditions which are unique, boutique propositions at the roadside. The days of Sani-wrapped paper cups and miniature plastic ice buckets are long gone. People are now gravitating back to design-forward vintage hotels. Motels hold a unique place in the modern psyche; they’ve long been synonymous with a specific notion of Americana and in the ’50s and ’60s, when they were a new-age concept, motels represented freedom. Read more in The Financial Times here.
A New Move To Better Understand Sustainable Tourism
People are hearing that they need to travel more sustainably, but do they really undersand exactly what that means? The World Travel & Tourism Council is now partnering with a luxury destination management company in Italy to promote "Community Conscious Travel” to raise awareness and drive action amongst consumers and communities to maintain the delicate equilibrium between residents' quality of life, the traveler experience, and the environmental health of popular destinations. Read more in Insider Travel Report here.