While providing guests with the best stay possible is the ultimate goal, hospitality is a business, and businesses are meant to make money. That is why hoteliers are always looking for the “next big thing.”
One of the latest next big things among travelers is that they want an alternative to traditional hotel stays, such as outdoor hospitality and home-style accommodations.
“The reason you are seeing a ton of interest in [alternative lodging concepts]from the major brands is that is where the consumer growth exists,” said Jason Fudin, CEO/cofounder, Placemakr, a brand specializing in home-style accommodations. “The two fastest-growing consumer segments in hospitality domestically are home-style accommodations and outdoor hospitality. The largest growing segment internationally is home-style accommodations.”
With brands “living and dying” by net unit growth, according to Fudin, in order to deliver more inventory, “you have to go where the customer is. Since the customer demand is evolving, you’re seeing those areas as the largest area for delivery of new inventory. New demand then leads to supply, and C Corps are highly interested in that supply because that is one of the most critical parts of their valuation—not only maintaining their EBITDA margins, but also how much they are growing their inventory.”

BWH Hotels partnered with Zion Wildflower at the base of Zion National Park in Utah as the first resort in its Explorer Series as part of its Premier Collection soft brand.
Outdoor lodging
More and more travelers are seeking time in the great outdoors, whether that’s through glamping (glamorous camping), cabin living, spending time in a luxury recreational vehicle or a hotel in the middle of nature. But guests are no longer roughing it—they are getting some of same luxury they expect from traditional hotels.
This category is hot, and the brands have noticed. In the last year, Hilton, Marriott, Best Western and Hyatt have all partnered with or acquired brands with experience in the concept.
“I think traditional hospitality brands are waking up to its popularity,” said Matt Gaghen, CEO of upscale outdoor hospitality provider Under Canvas, which has an alliance with Hyatt. “Traditional brick-and-mortar hotel brands are realizing that this is where their members want to be. It would behoove them to have a presence.”
The pandemic and its restrictions made people more interested in being outdoors and exploring. “We saw a very nontraditional guest mix during 2020 and 2021,” he said. “People who would usually be going to Europe were actually discovering the national parks in their own backyard for the first time. That has maintained, which has been amazing.”
Through their alliance, which was announced last July, Hyatt now offers stays at Under Canvas’ 13 outdoor resorts.
“When we went live with Hyatt, they didn’t have any properties in Montana, so all of a sudden we put them on the map in the state,” said Gaghen. “So, you see the mutual benefit of them being able to increase their footprint in the off-the-beaten-pathways. For us, it gets us in front of a new audience as part of our ongoing commitment to increasing distribution.”
Under Canvas launched in 2012 outside of Montana’s Yellowstone National Park and was inspired by the African safari experience. “Part of our development philosophy is that we only operate in the best sites with the most amazing views that are proximate to either national parks, monuments or iconic outdoor destinations,” he said.
Spread across destinations in the U.S., such as Yellowstone, Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains, Acadia National Park in Maine and Yosemite National Park in California, Under Canvas camps offer safari-inspired tents and complimentary programming such as nightly campfires with s’mores, board games, yoga and kid’s activities.
The company recently launched the ULUM brand in Moab, UT. The brand offers guests many of the same luxury amenities at a high-end resort, while still offering stays in tents.
“ULUM was launched by a thought that was supported by guest research that said that we have a huge segment of quintessential national park-goers and outdoorsy people who love what we do,” he said. “But we also think that there is a segment of people who are coming from major cities who might want a full sit-down restaurant dining experience versus Under Canvas’ café-style, healthy grab-and-go. They might want dipping pools because that is what they get at four- and five-star resorts, whereas we have more of a water-conscious philosophy at Under Canvas.”
Gaghen said Under Canvas and ULUM guests tend to be more affluent, but also have an “adventurous spirit. Otherwise, they wouldn’t find themselves in these very rural and remote areas. It’s people who are probably time-poor and college-educated with a high household income who probably don’t have the storage for all of the equipment. It is also hard to start a fire and work out where you are going to eat and pack nonperishable foods. It is not easy.”
As people are more high-touch and highly connected, Gaghen believes they are craving experiences where they can disconnect. “There are very few moments in our day when we get to get off WiFi and phone,” he said.

Marriott recently acquired the Postcard Cabins brand. Pictured here is the Postcard Cabins Hill Country location in Texas.
Embarking on an adventure and exploring nature are great ways to disconnect. In its 2025 Trends Report, Hilton found that one in four travelers plan to seek unique experiences, and 20% will aim for outdoor adventures.
“The rise in popularity for outdoor lodging reflects travelers’ desire for immersive stay experiences that foster a deeper connection with nature, all while escaping the routines of everyday life,” said Oral Muir, VP, partnerships, experiences and distribution, Hilton, which partnered with outdoor hospitality company AutoCamp in February 2024.
AutoCamp, through an exclusive relationship with Airstream, offers custom-designed Airstreams, cabins, luxury tents and other unique accommodations. Located at each AutoCamp location is The Clubhouse, the social hub of the property, which serves food and beverage options from The Kitchen, and offers grab-and-go merchandise and retail items from a boutique market. Surrounding The Clubhouse, the grounds feature multiple common areas, including communal fire pits, trails, swimming pools (at select locations), group meeting spaces and other outdoor amenities.
“Hilton’s partnership with AutoCamp was driven by a shared vision to blend outdoor adventure with the thoughtful design and comfort of a boutique hotel,” said Muir. “The collaboration established a unique opportunity to expand Hilton’s stay experiences with a leader in the outdoor lodging space, delivering our guests more ways to dream, book, stay, earn and redeem, while accessing exclusive benefits. Together, we look forward to continuing our journey to transform travel through sustainable, memorable outdoor experiences that inspire our guests to explore the world in new and meaningful ways.”
He said that the company saw “exceptional results right out of the gate,” since the full rollout of AutoCamp properties on Hilton’s booking channels in June 2024. “Engagement among Hilton Honors members has grown significantly, with increased points redemptions for AutoCamp stays and heightened activity across our booking channels. These trends underscore a strong and growing interest in outdoor hospitality experiences from a diverse range of travelers, especially our Hilton Honors members, who are eager to experience an AutoCamp stay firsthand.”
BWH Hotels is also hoping that the glamping trend will be a success with the launch of the Explorer Series as part of its Premier Collection soft brand. The upscale Zion Wildflower at the base of Zion National Park in Utah is its first property.
Essentially, glamping allows guests to have all the experience of being in the middle of nature without the inconveniences, like having to pitch your own tent, build a fire and, perhaps most important of all, the indignities of not having running water.
Brad LeBlanc, chief development officer, BWH Hotels, said that one of the main reasons glamping has become so popular is that people want more from their travel. “In a nutshell, it’s really simple—they want an experience,” he said. “This new generation of Gen Z travelers spans a wide age group, but they have this one thing in common.”
He, too, cited the pandemic as a reason for its surge in popularity, as it unleashed a desire among travels to get out an experience the world and the places they visited. “During COVID, people wondered if they would ever get to see the world again and experience its flavor, culture and beauty,” LeBlanc said. “Whether its upper-upscale luxury lodging, boutique lodging or soft branding, people don’t want vanilla anymore.”
Nick Ence, owner/president, Prime Hospitality Management, owner of the 17-acre Zion Wildflower, decided to open the glamping resort after previously developing a very successful traditional hotel near the park. “We also noticed an increased demand for more experience-based stays—something that guests could talk about and share on social media,” he said. “A traditional lodging facility is great, but we saw a growing need and demand for an experience-based stay in the area we were in.”
After researching other similar properties in the area and adding their own hospitality experience, the company launched the resort three years ago. “It is an organic stay but still has some of the amenities that we felt like people really wanted at the end of the day,” he said. “With glamping and other experience-based stays, there’s a wide variety you can get totally organic, where guests are boiling their own water and those types of things. We found an experience that fit for us, and it has been really successful.”
He cited the desire to disconnect as a reason why glamping is popular. “We’re so connected all the time to technology and people are looking for a way to feel grounded, to feel connected to something outside of technology” Ence said. “They want to feel something, and it helps their experience be more of a feeling experience.”
Zion Wildflower consists of tents, bungalows and Conestoga wagons, with bathroom and shower facilities. “We don’t have TVs in any of our room types,” said Ence. “There is limited internet. We have porches with rocking chairs, inviting people to disconnect a little bit and take a minute to just see what’s around them and experience it.”
Unlike a traditional hotel experience, where “you know what you are getting,” with glamping, “you show up a little bit uncertain,” he said. “There’s a little bit of excitement of what the experience is going to be like. I just think people are craving something that they can feel connected to.”
Ence said that as the popularity of the property grew, they decided to develop two more of them. They also felt the time was right to become part of a brand. “There is a real value that a brand brings,” he said. “We talked to all the major brands, and as we talked to Best Western, we felt that they gave us the most autonomy to be who we were, but still receive the benefits as far as marketing channels, expediting the organic growth that it takes to build your own thing.”
With owners always on the lookout for their latest opportunity for investment and growth, LeBlanc called glamping the next evolution in hospitality. “The advantage with glamping is that you are adding the next natural evolutionary product in the hospitality business. You aren’t just adding another regular hotel. You are saying that you want to evolve your portfolio and are doing something different. This is going to be a high-growth segment. We already see it.”
Marriott International also sees opportunity in the category as it made a big splash in the outdoor lodging space in December when it acquired the Postcard Cabins brand, formerly known as Getaway Outposts, and entered into a long-term agreement with Trailborn. The company plans to launch an outdoor-focused collection this year, anchored by these deals.
“It is really clear that customers are only more and more interested in nature-focused and immersive travel,” said Leeny Oberg, CFO/EVP, development, Marriott International.
She said that 82% of Marriott Bonvoy members indicated they were interested in outdoor travel, and 63% of U.S. adults are more likely to consider outdoor travel if the accommodations are both modern and comfortable. “When you think about the continued growing popularity of nature-focused travel and breadth and depth of Marriott Bonvoy, we really felt like it was an important step for us to develop the concept of the Outdoor Collection,” she said.
Postcard Cabins consists of groupings of tiny cabins, set on expansive woodlands. The cabins are dog-friendly and feature modern design, private bathrooms, full kitchens and space between cabins for privacy and relaxation. The current Postcard Cabins portfolio comprises 29 properties with more than 1,200 cabins across the U.S.
Trailborn’s current and pipeline portfolio consists of 559 rooms across five outdoor destinations, with several projects in development. It has locations near Rocky Mountain National Park, the Grand Canyon and in Highlands, NC, with properties to come in Wrightsville Beach, NC, and Mendocino, CA. The accommodations are inspired by each property’s unique locale and feature experience-driven programming, curated food and beverage offerings and property teams to help guests chart their exploration.
“With Postcard Cabins, the customers can have a special time out in the woods, where they can commune with the outdoors, while Trailborn presents some fabulous opportunities to be right near special state and national parks,” said Oberg. “Those are absolutely classic examples of the kinds of things that customers are searching for in their desire for more outdoor-based travel experiences.”
The brands give guests the ability to “get off the grid” but also fit the desire that a guest may have to “feel safe, have a consistent experience and know what they are paying for because they are connected with Marriott Bonvoy,” she said.
The Marriott executive expects a great deal of potential for these brands. “The excitement for us is our belief that there will be additional growth opportunities as we think of all the places that have these cabins or the incredible state and national parks near where people would love to be able to stay,” she added. “It’s a conversion-friendly opportunity for us, whether it be tiny homes or an existing older hotel that is close to a national park.”
Shortly after the deal for Postcard Cabins was revealed, Hotel Equities was chosen to operate all the brand’s properties, marking the management company’s first foray into outdoor hospitality.
Brad Rahinsky, president/CEO, Hotel Equities, brought up his own children, some of whom are in their 20s, to point out why outdoor hospitality is a popular category. “Their desire to go out and stay in a somewhat traditional or legacy-type hotel is lukewarm,” he said. “They would much prefer staying somewhere that is an experience, something that is a bit bespoke, off the grid, if you will. That’s not going away. While it may not be a match for everybody, we do think that the demographic and psychographic that is using it today will continue to grow.”
He believes that the sector is in the “very early innings,” adding, “You’re going to look back on this five or 10 years from now and see a really big shift in the way people go out, particularly from a leisure standpoint but also a business travel standpoint.”
He has seen an increased interest from institutional money in the sector, that “would not have looked at this as a viable investment option previously,” he said. “They are seeing that there is a real opportunity here if you get in with the right operating platform and the right model to take advantage of an industry that is becoming a bit homogenous in the legacy category. This allows for a level of creativity and experience.”
Home-style accommodations
While some travelers are looking to spend their time in the great outdoors, there are those looking for an experience that gives them a strong feeling of being at home while on the road.
Some travelers are choosing to stay in serviced apartments, aparthotels or flex-living spaces for long- and short-term stays, especially in major metropolitan cities. The category offers many of the amenities of a hotel but with apartments with full-sized kitchens and other home touches.
With the popularity of bleisure—a combination of business and leisure—travel, more guests are extending their stay and are looking for more comfort. “You are seeing that longer length of stay climb up,” said Placemakr’s Fudin. “In urban markets, you are seeing the demand for longer stays in the upper-upscale segment.”
With that longer stay, often with family and friends, the physicality of the space starts to matter, according to Fudin. “Given the growth of leisure and the ability to work remotely, more people are traveling with their partner and spending their off time exploring their destination.”
While this sounds very much like the Airbnb or VRBO model, what differs for guests is that they have many of the amenities that come with the traditional hotel.
For Christian Lee, CEO, Mint House, it was the guest experience at short-term rentals that made serviced apartments necessary. “You have this universe of people who got introduced to the idea that they could stay somewhere that feels like a home and not have the feeling like they are on the road,” he said. “The problem, though, with something like an Airbnb—which is an amazing platform—is that you have chores on the way out and you never know if there is a camera in the room. What if something happens? Is the owner going to be there?”
Guests wanted the “service and consistency” of a hotel, he said, but also the benefits of staying in a short-term rental. “They don’t want go in fully on a hotel,” he added. “They like the fact that they don’t have to clean on the way out. They like that there might be a pool or gym, but they don’t have to be in a tiny hotel room. There has always been a demand for it, but you are now seeing more of it.”
Fudin has seen this as well. “There is a very big segment of consumers—with fairly deep pockets—who are interested in a more hotel-like experience, where there is predictability in product and a depth of inventory, where the service level is a little higher and there is onsite staff,” he said.
A benefit for owners of this type of lodging is that they offer flex living, so some guests can stay for shorter periods of time, while others can sign leases for much longer stays. “In our building, you can rent an unfurnished apartment with a 12-month lease, and you can opt into hospitality services,” said Fudin. “If you live in one of the buildings, you can get cleaning and linen services and you have the benefit of a 24/7 hospitality staff on site.”
Many of Mint House’s lodging offerings are part of these types of buildings. “Our real estate conversations are with multifamily or mixed-use developers,” said Lee. “We go into a lot of new developments with 800 units that are amenitized, where the owners want us to run 100 units as short-term rentals that are segregated by floors. We know that because of the rates we can charge on a daily or weekly basis on a furnished room, we can drive a lot of NOI for those owners above what they can get for traditional multifamily unit.”
Some mixed-use developers who have a development with residential, retail, F&B and a hotel have approached Mint House instead of opening a hotel. “It looks and feels like the residential piece, but it’s furnished, and they are looking from the beginning to run it as a short-term rental,” said Lee.
Fudin sees several reasons for investors to put their money into these types of properties. “The short and long answer is to make money,” he said. “But the reality is that the rate penetration is over 100% because of the unmet consumer demand. It runs at higher GOP margins generally. We look to run at 60%-plus GOP margins on-property because it is more lightly staffed.”
While a lot of hotel development has happened in the extended-stay category because it is a better margin and return product, Fudin said the return profile for this style of inventory is better for real estate investors. “It has the benefit of being very resilient in cycles,” he said. “In the height of COVID, our average occupancy was 85%. That is because our average length of stay went up to three to four months because we were housing people instead of having transient guests.”
One of the benefits of the category is that it serves many different stay lengths. “It can be homes for people for a year or it can be a stay for one night,” he said. “Unlike traditional hospitality that can be more volatile in terms of income because of consumer demand through cycles, apartment-style inventory can be more resilient. We can lean more toward homes if transient softens.”