From distinctive design and local culture to personalised experiences, a new generation of hotels is changing how people travel across Asia-Pacific.
Lifestyle hotels have gone from a fairly small corner of the hotel industry to one of its fastest-growing parts across Asia-Pacific. According to JLL's Lifestyle Hotels in Asia Pacific research, the number of lifestyle hotel rooms in the region quadrupled in the ten years to 2024, with another 34% forecast by 2027. And some of the world's biggest hotel groups are now betting heavily on what comes next.
So what's driving it? Mostly, it's travellers. Across Asia-Pacific, people are getting choosier about where they stay. They want hotels that suit their interests, give them something to remember and connect them to the place they're visiting, and the industry is racing to keep up.
Travel has become personal. Some people plan a whole holiday around food. Others go for wellness, design, music or art, or simply want to stay somewhere that feels part of the local culture. A food lover might book a hotel because of its chef. A couple on a wellness break might choose one for its morning yoga and spa. Someone else just wants a rooftop bar with a view and a good DJ on a Friday night.
Booking.com's 2026 Travel Predictions, drawn from a survey of nearly 30,000 travellers in 33 countries and territories, found more people planning trips around their own interests, including ones they might once have thought too niche. That flows straight through to the hotels they choose.
A hotel with real character can become part of the holiday itself. People might come for the restaurant, the spa, the cultural programme or just the chance to stay somewhere that matches their taste. That's the appeal of lifestyle hotels: they tend to be built with a particular kind of guest, place or way of travelling in mind.
Asia-Pacific gives them plenty to work with, from big international cities to tropical islands and centuries-old cultural destinations, so a lifestyle hotel in one place can look nothing like one in the next.
What sets a lifestyle hotel apart is its personality. The architecture, interiors, music, art and food all shape how it feels, and more and more hotels are taking their cues from the neighbourhood around them.
A city hotel might lean into local art, contemporary design and a busy bar scene. A resort might build itself around nature, wellness, food or local culture. Think of a lobby that works as a café by day and a bar by night, or a resort whose restaurant cooks with local produce and whose rooms are filled with work by local artists. Those details give a place its identity and give guests something to remember it by.
JLL's research also points to a rise in conversions across Asia-Pacific, where existing buildings are turned into hotels, particularly by lifestyle brands. CBRE counts around 170 lifestyle hotels, roughly 35,000 rooms, opened in the region through conversions since 2020. An older building often brings character and a connection to its street that's hard to design from scratch.
For travellers, that means more choice. A hotel can be relaxed and creative, polished and intimate, or lively and social, depending on who it's for. The best ones pull it all together in a way that feels natural to where they are.
The big hotel groups have noticed too. Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt and Accor have all been building up their lifestyle brands, and JLL reports that Marriott alone held about 44% of the region's lifestyle hotel supply in 2024.
Hilton is moving quickly as well. In April 2026, Hilton announced plans for more than 15 luxury and lifestyle openings across Asia-Pacific during the year, including eight brand debuts in new markets. The list includes NoMad, Canopy, Curio Collection and Tapestry Collection, in places such as Singapore, Thailand, India and Vietnam.
That's a lot of money and attention for one corner of the market, and the big groups are growing it in two ways. Some of their names, such as NoMad and Canopy, are lifestyle brands with a look and feel you'd recognise from one city to the next. Others, such as Curio Collection and Tapestry Collection, are what the industry calls soft brands: collections of independent hotels that keep their own name and personality while belonging to a bigger group. JLL notes that soft brands have been behind much of the region's recent lifestyle growth, especially in conversions.
Either way, the groups get hotels with real personality, plus the booking systems, loyalty programmes and global reach they already have. Travellers get more interesting places to stay, often backed by a name they know. And the growth is spreading well beyond the big cities, into resort towns and newer travel markets, each with its own crowd and character.
One of the best things about this shift is how hotels are becoming part of the places around them. A good one can be a local hangout as much as a base for visitors, adding to the area's food, culture and social life. Its restaurants, bars, wellness spaces and public areas give people reasons to drop in at any time of day, and events help tie it to the wider community. Think of a beach club that fills up with locals on a Sunday afternoon, or a hotel restaurant that becomes the neighbourhood's favourite spot for a birthday dinner.
Geonet's development strategy in Bali is built around these same shifts: travellers choosing a hotel for how they want to spend their time, and hotels becoming part of everyday life in the places around them. For CEO Chad Egan, that's the whole point.
"What excites me about lifestyle hotels is the opportunity to create an entire destination. We think about how people want to spend their time, the atmosphere we want to create and the experiences that will bring them back. When you get those things working together, the hotel becomes part of the destination itself."
You can see it in The Wylder in Canggu and ELLE Resort & Beach Club in Seminyak. The Wylder is being developed as a lifestyle hotel with residences, while ELLE Resort & Beach Club brings an internationally recognised lifestyle brand to Seminyak's beachfront. Each has its own personality, but both are designed as complete destinations, built around how guests will spend their days, where they'll gather and what will bring them back.
If the growth continues, travellers will have even more choice in how they experience a place. Some hotels will be all about wellness and switching off. Others will focus on food, culture, entertainment or design, and plenty will mix several of these for a particular crowd.
The rise of lifestyle brands also shows that luxury and personality can sit together. You can have excellent rooms and service in a hotel that feels relaxed, creative or social.
For developers, that means knowing exactly who a hotel is for before it's built. For anyone thinking about hotel investment, it's a useful window into the kinds of hotels going up across Asia-Pacific, and why.
The boom comes down to a few things happening at once: people travelling differently, wanting different things from a stay, and the world's biggest hotel groups backing that change with serious money. The hotels that stand out will be the ones that know their guests, embrace where they are and give people a reason to come back.
In the years ahead, the hotel people choose will often be the reason they go.
