The Future Of Hotel Design Lies In How Guests Use Spaces

A hotel room can be beautifully furnished, a lobby can make an impressive first impression, and a restaurant can serve an excellent breakfast. Yet, the success of a hotel increasingly depends on what happens between these spaces, how guests use them, and whether the experience reflects the reason they travelled in the first place. As expectations evolve, hotel design is moving beyond aesthetics to consider the behaviour, habits, and motivations of the people who inhabit these spaces.

For Cristiano Rinaldi, Chief Lodging Product & Services Officer for Asia Pacific excluding China (APEC) at Marriott International, this shift begins with understanding what travellers value today. Access to local culture, meaningful community interactions, and opportunities for wellbeing are influencing how hotels are planned, from their architectural identity to the smallest details of a guest room. As he puts it, “great design should help guests experience the destination in a way that feels personal and memorable”.

Designing For How People Actually Travel

The traditional markers of luxury, including spacious rooms, polished interiors, and attentive service, remain important. However, travellers increasingly expect their accommodation to connect them with the destination beyond its walls. Marriott's Luxury Group research found that 87 per cent of affluent Gen Z travellers say cultural immersion and engagement with local communities influence their choice of destination.

This has implications for design from the outset. The surrounding landscape, local craftsmanship, food, and cultural context need to inform how a hotel looks and functions, rather than being added as decorative details after the architecture is established. The challenge is to create an environment that feels rooted in its location while retaining the standards guests associate with a familiar brand.

At JW Marriott Ranthambore Resort & Spa, this approach takes shape through accommodation that includes tented suites and villas, a strong relationship with the surrounding landscape, and experiences connected to Rajasthan's food and craft traditions. The brand remains recognisable, but the setting determines how its identity is expressed.

“Consistency does not necessarily mean sameness,” Rinaldi says. It is a distinction that matters as international hotel groups expand across destinations with markedly different architectural traditions, climates, and cultural identities.

The Hotel As A Space That Changes With The Day

Guest behaviour is also challenging the conventional division of hotel spaces into fixed functions. A lobby designed exclusively for arrivals, a restaurant used primarily for breakfast, or a lounge that remains empty for much of the afternoon represents an opportunity to reconsider how space is allocated.

Marriott is increasingly exploring flexible environments that can accommodate different activities throughout the day. A breakfast area, for instance, might become a more intimate gathering space later, while a lobby could shift from a place for working to one for socialising. At Moxy Hotels, the check-in desk doubles as a bar, bringing the arrival experience into the social life of the property.

These changes reflect a broader understanding of how people use hotels. Guests may want to work between meetings, meet friends before dinner, or spend time in communal areas without committing to a formal dining experience. Spaces that accommodate these different needs can make a hotel more useful throughout the day, rather than limiting its appeal to the guest room or a handful of facilities.

Rinaldi's regional leadership brings operations, brand, and global design functions together, allowing insights from existing hotels to inform future projects. The aim is to consider how a property works as a whole, rather than designing individual spaces in isolation.

“We are moving away from single-purpose spaces that may be beautifully designed but underutilized,” he says.

From Arrival To Rest And Recovery

The guest journey extends beyond the efficient movement between the lobby, room, restaurant, and wellness facilities. The way these spaces connect can determine whether a hotel feels intuitive or disjointed. Design must establish a coherent experience without making every property follow the same visual formula.

Wellness, in particular, is influencing architectural decisions. Instead of treating it as an amenity confined to a spa or gym, hotels are increasingly considering how lighting, materials, natural surroundings, and room layouts contribute to rest and recovery. At the JW Marriott Hotel Tokyo, Mindful Rooms combine calming materials and lighting with amenities designed around renewal.

At The Westin Resort & Spa Himalayas, the relationship with the natural landscape informs the experience, while a dedicated 1,115-square-metre wellness floor brings together the spa, infinity pool, steam room, and treatment spaces.

Such examples point to a more integrated approach to wellbeing, where the design of the guest room, shared areas, and outdoor spaces contributes to how a person feels during a stay. The question is no longer simply whether a hotel has wellness facilities, but how the entire environment supports the guest's needs.

Where Technology Meets Human Connection

Behavioural insights and technology can help designers identify where established layouts no longer serve guests effectively. Understanding how people move through a property, which spaces they use, and where friction occurs can inform decisions about circulation, communal areas, and arrival experiences.

Technology has a role in making the journey more intuitive, from anticipating guest preferences to reducing repetitive tasks. However, its value depends on whether it improves the experience without making hospitality feel impersonal.

“I see technology at its best when it operates quietly in the background, giving our people more time and insight to create genuine human connection,” Rinaldi says.

Sustainability is becoming part of this design conversation, too. Energy efficiency, water conservation, electric vehicle charging, and the protection of surrounding ecosystems influence how hotels operate and interact with their locations. The longer-term challenge is to create buildings that remain useful and relevant without requiring constant reinvention. For Rinaldi, longevity comes from a strong identity, durable material choices, and spaces that can adapt as guest expectations change.

India's Influence On The Next Generation Of Hotels

India offers a particularly revealing perspective on these shifts. Its varied landscapes, craft traditions, architectural heritage, and regional cuisines make standardised design approaches difficult to apply without losing a property's connection to its location. At the same time, growing domestic demand is bringing expectations around contemporary design, personalised service, wellness, and experience-led travel into sharper focus.

Rinaldi points to India's ability to combine heritage with modernity as an influence on the future of hospitality. Marriott's development pipeline of 180 hotels across India also reflects the scale of the opportunity, although each new property must respond to its own market and setting.

For architects and hotel operators, the challenge is to anticipate how guests will use a building years after it opens. Flexible layouts, meaningful local connections, and a coherent guest journey can help a property remain relevant as travel habits evolve.

Ultimately, the future of hotel design may depend less on creating spaces that impress at first glance and more on understanding what makes people want to return. As Rinaldi puts it, “The most important lesson is that people remember how you made them feel and this boils down to human connection.”

FAQs