Skift Take

Lifestyle hotels come in many forms, with some focused more on the hip and trendy while, others like Hilton see it as an opportunity to scale up more experiential and food-focused properties around the world. Long story short: we still don't have a textbook definition for what a lifestyle hotel actually is.

Series: Early Check-In

Early Check-In

Editor’s Note: Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill brings readers exclusive reporting and insights into hotel deals and development, and how those trends are making an impact across the travel industry.

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A lifestyle hotel is a major hospitality buzz word that doesn’t exactly have a standard definition. But that isn’t keeping major hotel companies from touting these properties as a major source of growth. Accor, which defines them as properties that make as much as half their revenue — sometimes even 70 percent — from food and beverage outlets, is the company with the most public growth target for these hotels. Lifestyle hotels comprise a quarter of projected franchise fees to be generated from the company’s 212,000-room development pipeline. Hilton isn’t ceding as much of its overall development pipeline to these kinds of hotels; however, the company is still projecting significant growth in the sector, with the company’s lifestyle division across brands like Motto and Tempo slated to double within the next five years. “With Hilton, the powerhouses are always going to be the Hampton [Inns] and the Hilton Garden Inns,” said Phil Cordell, senior vice president and global head of new brand development at Hilton. “But I'm excited about all of our lifestyle brands. Tempo is going to be the easiest for us to get to scale.” Editor’s Note: Early Check-In is taking a break next Monday, May 31. We will be back for all our Skift Pro subscribers on Monday, June 7.  Semantics: First thing’s first: How do they even define one of these hotels around Hilton's McLean, Virginia, headquarters? Hilton’s lifestyle brands include Motto and Tempo as well as Canopy, the largest of the three with 30 properties. Motto properties tend to be more about location, location, location in ci