In the media: What a hotel stay could look like in 2050
From holographic concierges to sleep-optimising sheets, a new book outlines the services we might expect from the hospitality of the future.
Source: The Telegraph (31 March, 2026), by: Fiona Kerr.
The year is 2050. You arrive at the Next Nest hotel in Neo Tokyo welcomed by a holographic concierge who instantly recognises you and greets you by name. The lobby walls are decorated with ever-changing art created by AI artists.
A fragrance fills the air, tailored to each guest, whose preferences are detected by biometric scanners as they walk in. Upstairs, your room has been tailored automatically too – from temperature and lighting to the music playing in the background. Beds adjust to the perfect firmness based on body type and sleeping habits.
Smart-glass windows switch from transparent to opaque on voice command. The walls are interactive displays projecting whatever scene you like. The hotel’s AI is always at your service and can arrange for anything from a meal prepared by robotic chefs to a VR tour of ancient Rome. The spa uses nanotechnology to provide personalised treatments at cellular level.
This is just one sci-fi vision laid out in a new book, The Future of Hotels: Creating What’s Next, co-edited by Dr Ian Yeoman, professor of disruption, innovation and new phenomena at the Netherlands’ prestigious Hotel Management School Leeuwarden. “The book is about speculation, but I’m always interested in scepticism,” he says. “If someone says it’s not going to happen, to me it will happen.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Yeoman has described a seemingly unthinkable future and got it right. In 2006, he modelled a scenario where a global virus shut borders and tourism collapsed. So, what does he think the next pandemic-level disruptor is for hotels? “The AI algorithm replacing the hotel manager with a computer. That’s the big thing I talk about.”
Other futuristic projections in the book – which brings together academics from around the world to gaze into their crystal balls – include wellness programmes monitored by brain-computer interfaces, 3D printers used to produce anything guests forget to pack, hotel rooms that dynamically transform based on guest preferences using claytronic (an emerging field of engineering that focuses on creating programmable matter), a hotel on Mars in 2049 and – that science fiction staple – humanoid robot staff.
Read more on the website of The Telegraph.
Professorship Disruption, Innovation and New Phenomena
