Guest expectations have continued to evolve rapidly, necessitating a commensurate evolution of the traditional hotel room. As travel habits shift and development costs climb, hospitality’s old assumptions are being challenged.
At the Wyndham Hotels & Resorts roundtable “Reimagining Travel and Space: Where Guest Experience, Value and Vision Align” at AHC 2025, senior leaders and industry voices unpacked the question: “What does the future of travel look like? And what does the industry need to do to keep up?”
Guest expectations
For Wyndham, whose global footprint stretches across 9,000 hotels and 700 properties in the EMEA region, the answer lies in experience, design and AI, amongst others, with senior executives also noting changes in guests’ needs.
Guests are looking for something more instinctive, more intuitive, more personal.
“The traditional hotel still has its place, but guests today want more than rate and location. They want a home from home. That’s where branded residences and extended-stay concepts come into play,” says Jackie Brown, Regional Director for North & West Europe.
Ronald Egelman, Wyndham’s Head of Strategic Development EMEA agrees. “Guests are focusing less on the room and more on the overall experience.”
Development and design
That shift collides head-on with the economics of development. As construction costs soar, up 20 to 30 per cent in many major European markets since 2020, and operating costs climb with them, developers are questioning every square metre they commit to a room.
In the UK, the conversation is further constrained and sharpened by the lack of available development land.
Brown notes “New builds are few and far between,” pointing out that most growth will be driven through conversions. That reality further forces brands to expand their design tolerance: rigid room standards are luxuries of the past. The winners will be those who can turn these constraints into personality.
That shift mirrors broader market trends. Budget and midscale brands across Europe such as hub by Premier Inn, Spark by Hilton and Four Points by Sheraton are already shrinking footprints. And Egelman expects Wyndham to move in the same direction.
“Rooms will get smaller in urban locations for economy or budget brands,” he notes.
But the room-size debate can’t ignore purpose of stay. CitizenM has proven the appetite for compact, beautifully designed rooms, but not for every guest.
One industry stakeholder captured the nuance perfectly: “I’d stay in a CitizenM with no window on my own. It’s cosy. But I’d never stay there if I wasn’t travelling on my own.” And while some say the windowless trend doesn’t suit, they note that purpose drives preference.
The experience
And that tension between efficiency and comfort, cost and experience will define the coming years of hotel development.
Hotels must answer: Is this hotel the destination? Or is it just a channel to somewhere else?”
In destinations where guests spill immediately into bars, restaurants and culture, the room shrinks in relevance. But in remote destinations, it expands, and the hotel’s own F&B and amenities become central to the guest’s experience. And in an era where dining increasingly impact appeal, hotels face a delicate balancing act: creating vibrant F&B spaces that draw local footfall while ensuring hotel guests still feel prioritised, not crowded out.
Layered on top of these questions is another around the relationship of the younger generation to big hotel brands, with roundtable attendees noting a steep drop-off in engagement among Gen Z. They know the brands, but they don’t connect with them, at least not in the way older travellers do. Their loyalty instead lies in things like experiences and in the seamlessness of the digital journey.
Technology and AI
Technology, meanwhile, sits in the background of all these shifts, simultaneously enabling efficiency and somewhat threatening the very essence of hospitality.
Wyndham’s introduction of Wyndham Connect, now in thousands of US properties and rolling out in the UK, shows the cautious optimism with which the company is approaching AI and automation. Guests appreciate frictionless queries, digital keys, and the chance to upgrade without an awkward conversation. Operators appreciate the upsell revenue and pressure relieved from the front desk.
But both Brown and Egelman stressed a core principle: technology must never erase human hospitality.
The consensus is that choice, not automation, should guide technological adoption. Guests in a hurry should be able to bypass the desk. Guests craving connection should find a person ready to greet them. Anything less risks flattening the experience into something transactional and forgettable.
That leads back to the heart of Wyndham’s strategy. The company is already responding to shifting expectations: rethinking space requirements, strengthening design, broadening its embrace of new hospitality types, exploring branded residences and extended stay, and probing the possibilities and risks of AI in shaping future travel decisions.
Brown offered a glimpse into the next frontier: AI-driven trip planning. “What influence do we have over that?” she asked. It is a question the entire industry must confront. If AI becomes the concierge of the future, what criteria will it value, and who gets to define them?
The roundtable made one thing clear: hotels can no longer be everything to everyone. And the direction of travel is clear: developers will build smaller, efficient design will be utilised to offset limited space, brands will invest in experience, and technology will automate the routine. And Wyndham, like its peers, must navigate the coming of this brave new world.