Developments in the hotel industry: design meets historic properties

Abstract

The fast growth cultural tourism has undergone since 1980 is a direct result of the rising interest for art, culture and history, which can be explained by demographic, social and cultural changes. These changes are, at the same time, the direct force behind the emergence of the lifestyle hotel. Taking into account the process of standardisation (box hotels) of the international hotel industry, it reviews the irruption of alternate hospitality models and their consolidation as cultural tourism products, identifying three main product-market combinations: historic establishments, design and design-historic hotels. These productmarket combinations intend to provide an identity-fit to the tourists thus greatly assisting in the cultural tourism experience as a whole. An analysis of the lifestyle hotel product is undertaken in order to give insight into the future of the niche.