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Changing travel habits: How hotels are adapting to the new traveller
From personalisation and wellness to AI and experiences, the priorities shaping hotel stays are changing
- PUBLISHED: Tue 29 Sept 2026, 8:00 AM
Travel patterns are changing as the lines between business, leisure and different types of travel continue to blur. Travellers are increasingly combining work with leisure, seeking wellness and cultural experiences, and looking for more ways to engage with a destination during their stay.
For hotels, this means responding to a wider range of needs during a single stay. Location, comfort and good service still matter, but guests are also looking for experiences that feel relevant to them, greater flexibility and value for money. Technology is also giving hotels new ways to understand what guests want and personalise their stay.
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These changing expectations come as the UAE’s hospitality industry continues to grow. More than 32 million guests stayed in hotel establishments across the country in 2025, up 5.1 per cent from the previous year, while hotel revenues rose 9.7 per cent to Dh49.21 billion. The UAE ended the year with more than 217,000 hotel rooms and an occupancy rate of 79.5 per cent.
Dubai has continued to see strong hotel activity in 2026, recording 21.61 million occupied room nights during the first eight months of the year. By August, the city had welcomed 6.97 million international overnight visitors, coming from markets ranging from Western Europe and South Asia to the GCC, CIS and Eastern Europe.
For hotels, such a broad mix of visitors means catering to people with different priorities, budgets and reasons for travelling. These changing needs were also in focus at the recently concluded Arabian Travel Market, held in Dubai from September 14 to 17, particularly the rise of the “multi-motivated traveller” — guests looking for culture, wellness, connection and value within the same journey.
Technology is inevitably becoming part of the conversation too. AI is giving hotels more ways to understand their guests and tailor experiences around individual preferences. But more technology does not necessarily mean a better stay. As the industry explores what AI can offer, the challenge for hotels will be finding the right balance between convenience and personalisation, while retaining the human service that remains at the heart of hospitality.
Rethinking The Hotel Experience
Hotels are already seeing this shift play out in the way guests plan and experience their stays. Rene D. Egle, Cluster General Manager at JA The Resort, Jebel Ali Beach Dubai, said guests now expect much more than a comfortable room and good service. They want a stay that feels relevant to them, whether that involves spending time outdoors, focusing on wellness, discovering local experiences or travelling with family.
“What has changed is that these expectations now overlap,” Egle said.
“A family may want activities for the children, time by the beach, quality dining and wellness all within the same stay. Couples may want relaxation but also experiences that give them a stronger sense of place.”
This is also changing how travellers think about value. At JA The Resort, Egle said guests can move between the beach, golf, equestrian experiences, watersports, dining and wellness rather than building their holiday around one particular activity. “Increasingly, that breadth of experience is becoming part of how travellers assess value.”
The shift is particularly visible in the luxury segment, where the hotel itself is becoming a bigger part of the overall travel experience.
Haytham Omar, Managing Director of Sofitel Dubai The Obelisk, said guests are no longer necessarily separating accommodation, dining, wellness and culture into individual parts of a stay.
“A hotel has become more than a place to stay, but a key part of the destination itself; a place where guests can discover the city, connect with its culture, dine well, recharge, and feel genuinely looked after,” Omar said.
That has also given value a broader meaning in luxury hospitality. According to Omar, it is increasingly about whether an experience feels worth a guest’s “time, attention and investment”, rather than simply how much is included in a stay.
At Sofitel Dubai The Obelisk, the approach is to connect the experience with Dubai and Emirati hospitality while retaining the brand’s French identity. “The opportunity for luxury hotels today is to create experiences that are bespoke and genuine, rather than simply adding more to the guest journey,” he said.
The same move towards a more rounded hotel experience is being seen across different parts of the market. Stefan Schmid, General Manager of Al Jaddaf Rotana Suite Hotel, described today’s traveller as looking for something “more holistic”, where culture, wellness, connection and value come together within one journey.
For the hotel, that has meant incorporating these elements into the stay rather than treating them as standalone offerings. Schmid pointed to restaurants increasingly functioning as social spaces where guests can connect and unwind, while wellness and inclusivity are being built more directly into the guest journey.
Personalisation is another part of that equation. Karolina Paliszewska, Multi-Property General Manager at Sheraton The Walk, Dubai, Four Points by Sheraton Sheikh Zayed Road and Four Points by Sheraton Bur Dubai, said travellers increasingly see hotels as part of the destination rather than simply somewhere to sleep. “They are looking for authentic experiences, wellbeing, flexibility and value,” Paliszewska said. “Hotels therefore need to understand what matters to their guests and create experiences that feel relevant and personal.”
Personalisation experience
As hotels cater to a wider range of preferences, personalisation has become an important part of the guest experience. But delivering it across hundreds of rooms and thousands of stays requires more than simply offering more choices.
Egle said personalisation does not necessarily mean creating an entirely different stay for every guest. Instead, the opportunity lies in providing enough choice and flexibility for travellers to shape their stay around what matters to them.
Hotels already have useful information before a guest arrives, from whether they are returning and who they are travelling with to their room choice and previous preferences. “Used well, that information allows us to make relevant recommendations rather than overwhelming guests with everything the hotel has to offer,” Egle said.
Behind that personalisation, however, needs to be an operation capable of delivering it smoothly. “At a resort of our scale, for example, there are many different experiences available, but the guest should never have to navigate complexity. Personalisation works best when it feels effortless from their perspective.”
Omar also sees understanding the individual guest as the starting point. A family on holiday, a couple celebrating an occasion and a business traveller hosting clients, he said, may all stay at the same property but have very different ideas of what makes a successful stay.
Technology can help hotels recognise those differences at scale, but Omar believes it should support staff rather than replace their judgement.
“Guest information is valuable only when our teams can translate it into better decisions and more thoughtful service,” he said. “The real measure of personalisation is that the guest notices the care, not the system behind it.”
At Al Jaddaf Rotana Suite Hotel, Schmid said technology is being used to make everyday interactions simpler while allowing services to be tailored more closely to individual preferences. Online room-service ordering and digital chat features, for instance, allow guests to request services or communicate directly with hotel teams.
Technology is also helping the hotel tailor offers before a guest arrives. According to Schmid, these tools can streamline operations while delivering “a more personalised and memorable experience at scale, without adding pressure on the teams.”
Paliszewska agreed that personalisation and efficiency can work together when hotels have the right systems and information in place. “Understanding guest preferences allows us to anticipate needs while maintaining consistent operational standards,” she said. “Across multiple properties, the goal is to have consistency where it matters, while empowering teams to personalise the guest journey.”
As AI becomes more widely used in hospitality, hotels are finding new ways to use technology to understand their guests, anticipate preferences and make service more efficient. At the same time, there is a clear recognition that technology can only go so far, particularly in an industry where personal interaction remains a central part of the experience.
For Egle, technology should make hospitality “more intuitive, not less personal”. AI and guest data can help hotels recognise patterns, from a returning guest’s preferred room type to the activities a family may be interested in or the wellness experiences that could appeal to a regular spa guest.
But Egle said the real value comes from how hotel teams use that information. “The warmth of a genuine welcome, someone remembering a returning guest or an associate recognising what a family needs in the moment cannot be replicated by technology.”
Rather than replacing those interactions, he believes technology can work in the background to remove friction and give employees more time and information to engage with guests. “It should enhance human interaction rather than replace it,” Egle added.
Omar also sees some of AI’s biggest opportunities taking place behind the scenes. Instead of making hospitality more automated, he said the technology can help identify patterns, understand guest preferences, reduce administrative work and give employees quicker access to relevant information.
That, in turn, can free up more time for interactions that require human judgement. “A system may indicate that a guest has stayed with us before or prefers a particular experience. It cannot, on its own, understand the emotion behind a return visit, recognise an unspoken need or decide when a spontaneous gesture is appropriate,” Omar said.
For luxury hospitality in particular, he believes the distinction is important. “The goal is not to put more technology between the guest and the hotel; it is to use technology intelligently so our people can spend more time creating genuine connection.”
Schmid shares that view, describing technology as a tool that should “do the groundwork” for hotel teams. Digital tools can help understand preferences ahead of a stay and streamline guest requests, but he said some aspects of hospitality continue to depend heavily on people.
“Our restaurants are a good example where success still comes down to a combination of things: culinary excellence, ambience and atmosphere, and above all, personalised service delivered by the staff. No system can replicate that,” Schmid said.
For Paliszewska, the relationship between technology and people is similarly complementary. AI can help hotels anticipate needs and streamline operations, she said, giving employees more time to focus directly on guests.
“Hospitality will always be about people; technology simply gives us better tools to deliver it,” Paliszewska added.
As travel continues to evolve, hotels are also keeping a close eye on the priorities likely to shape guest choices in the years ahead.
Egle expects travellers to become increasingly intentional about both their time and spending. While value will remain important, he believes it will be judged more by the quality and variety of experiences available than simply by room rates.
Flexibility will also become increasingly important as guests look to combine wellness, dining, sport, family time and discovery within a single trip. At the same time, expectations around personalisation are likely to continue rising. “Hotels need to understand their guests better, use data more intelligently and ensure their teams can translate those insights into meaningful service,” Egle said.
For resorts in particular, he believes this means looking beyond accommodation to the wider destination experience. “The brands that will remain relevant are those that give guests genuine choice, make that choice easy to navigate and continue to deliver the human connection that ultimately makes a stay memorable.”
Omar similarly expects travel to become more purposeful and personalised, with the boundaries between business and leisure, dining and culture, and wellbeing and exploration continuing to blur. Wellness, he said, is also moving beyond being a standalone hotel offering and becoming part of the wider guest experience.
However, adapting to new expectations does not mean responding to every new trend. “The answer is not to follow every emerging trend. It is to understand which changes genuinely matter to each guest and build them into an experience that remains authentic to each unique brand and destination,” Omar said.
Dubai, he added, offers a particularly relevant example because of the wide range of markets, cultures and generations it attracts, each bringing different expectations.
“The winners will be the hotels that can deliver consistency without uniformity, maintain a clear brand promise, and offer guests the impression of an experience that has been designed with them in mind,” Omar said.
Schmid, meanwhile, sees sustainability and inclusivity as two areas moving from additional considerations to established guest expectations.
At Al Jaddaf Rotana Suite Hotel, he pointed to efforts to reduce energy consumption and divert waste, alongside the hotel becoming a Certified Autism Centre, as examples of how these priorities are being incorporated into operations.
His advice for the industry is to look beyond simply adding individual wellness or cultural experiences. Instead, hotels should consider “how the entire guest journey can be made to work meaningfully for a broader range of travellers.”
For Paliszewska, experiences, wellbeing, flexibility and value will continue to shape traveller decisions alongside expectations for seamless digital experiences. Preparing for that future, she said, will require investment not only in technology and data but also in people and service.
“The winners will be those that combine operational excellence with a genuine understanding of the evolving traveller,” Paliszewska said.
As a passionate storyteller and content writer, Kushmita Bose loves weaving narratives that inform, inspire, and entertain. Whether she's unraveling tech revolutions, dissecting industry reports, or bringing a brand’s journey to life, Kushmita thrives on transforming ideas into captivating stories. When she’s not busy crafting content, you’ll probably find her daydreaming about her next travel adventure.