5 accommodation trends to keep in mind in 2023

Year 2022 is almost over, and it is now time to analyse current travellers’ behaviours and focus on future tourism scenarios, in order to plan an efficient and clear business strategy. We have already talked about Travel & Tourism scenarios, especially considering recent global events. We will now focus on 5 key accommodation trends which will influence the year ahead, according to SiteMinder, the world’s leading open hotel commerce platform. 

1. The Macro-Travel Trend
“The urge to travel is a stronger force than rising inflation”. Travel, indeed, turns out to be essential to people mental health. Proactive hoteliers are exploiting this desire to travel by providing customers with personalised communication to boost profits and enhance the customers’ experience with ancillary services.

2. The Digital Influence Trend
43% of travellers is influenced by social media when booking a stay, especially in the case of urban travellers belonging to Gen Z and Millennials. Also according to The 2022 Digital Transformation Report by Skift, digital transformations will drive travellers’ choices and experience in the future.
But, if the “before” and “during the journey” phases are more and more important in tourism strategies, the “post-stay” is still not being taken into consideration as it should. SiteMinder data shows us that travellers welcome contact at all stages of the guest journey, especially in the case of luxury hotels.  

3. The Bleisure Trend 
Among bleisure travellers, it turns out that 49% belongs to Gen Z, followed by Millennials. Considering this, we also need to keep in mind that one billion digital nomads are projected to be in the global workforce by 2035, it is therefore necessary for accommodation providers to be more appealing for this segment by providing the so-called “hotel of the future”. Promoting deals and hotel packages designed specifically for working travellers and based on a deep analysis of the target’s needs, would be a proper way to take advantage of this trend. 

4. The Trust Trend 
“Every digital touchpoint matters for the new trust-critical traveller”. As we already highlighted in a previous article, trust and human-centric approach are becoming the key to build confidence and increase customer loyalty. Two topics are fundamental in the case of the hotel industry:  
a. Metaverse: more than 70% of all travellers would ‘likely’ or ‘definitely’ pre-visit their property in the metaverse before check-in if they had the opportunity to; 
b. E-commerce experience: investing in secure payment processes can create significant advantages both in terms of brand perception and efficiency. The percentage of consumers who prefer to pay online varies depending on age and place of origin: 71% of Chinese travellers prefer to pay online, 56% of Italians would choose the in-person payment, while in the USA both methods are chosen. Regardless of the preferred payment option, what matters is that for 57% of interviewed travellers “an easy and secure booking and payment process is the top priority when choosing whether to book via a property’s website”. 

5. The Human Connection Trend 
“Tech-enabled travellers are not willing to compromise on human connection”. Technology, indeed, is not here to substitute the real and human experience, but to facilitate and enhance the customer journey management as well as create new opportunities for businesses to monetise.  

At Twissen we observed that, also due to the acceleration linked to the pandemic, accommodation providers must enter the digital era with a clear strategy, especially now that we are already considering the future implementation of the metaverse. However, we also have to keep in mind the most important lesson we learned during the past biennium: the human factor is what matters most, since staff and customer service are one of main reasons why travellers become loyal customers. Thus, resources should be allocated on both sides: technology as well as training.  

Twissen