Why Modular Hotels are on the Rise

Managing a hotel is perhaps more challenging now than any other time in recent memory. Growth within the travel industry, and other factors, are placing greater pressure on hotels to maintain a higher level of efficiency and keep up with guest expectations. Modular construction is an innovative solution that can be leveraged to mitigate both challenges.

Meeting Demand and Maximizing Efficiency

Travel spending has been increasing steadily in recent years. While this is an encouraging opportunity for the industry, it also poses a challenge to meet the growing demand through constructing newer and larger buildings to accommodate more guests. The process of building modules inside an expansive production facility while crews prepare the foundation, and assembling them onsite to form the completed structure, can cut total construction time in half.

The rise in travel spending is not the only factor compelling hotel brands to re-examine the way they build new locations, though. Digital disruptors, such as the accommodations booking platform Airbnb, have become powerhouses of tourism, challenging hoteliers not only to compete with each other, but also with a world full of property owners opening their doors to millions, globally.

Modular construction provides an additional means for the industry to reduce the threat posed by the sharing economy by fostering faster revenue generation. As aforementioned, modularization significantly reduces the timeline of construction. In addition to eliminating the stress associated with a prolonged project, opening a hotel months sooner than if constructed traditionally means months of additional revenue.

Meeting Shifting Expectations

Modular hotels also appeal to the shifting expectations of guests. As preferences change, more and more consumers are taking environmental sustainability into consideration when making purchasing decisions. The same applies to hotel stays. A leading way hotel operations can be more sustainable is to reduce the use of plastic products and water, but a respect for the environment can also start at the construction of the building itself! The reduced waste and pollution associated with steel modular buildings make them something any environmentally conscious guest can appreciate.

Not Just a Fantasy

These noteworthy possibilities are by no means hypothetical. Major names in hospitality, such as Hampton Inn and Sandals Resorts International, have been opening modular hotels for decades, but the trend has grown quickly in recent years, with industry giants like Marriott launching deliberate initiatives to increase the use of modular technology in new builds across North America—including the anticipated opening of the world’s tallest modular hotel in 2020.

With the eyes of the world on these rising structures and this innovative technique’s vast potential, modular construction is destined to become the method of choice for hoteliers around the world.