Christina Jelski
If 2022 and 2023 were the years that travelers sought to make up for lost time, cramming their trips with as many destinations, activities and sightseeing stops as humanly possible, then 2024 is perhaps the year jet-setters adopt a less frenetic travel pace.
Hilton certainly thinks so. Late last year, the hospitality giant declared 2024 "The Year of the Great Recharge," after a global survey conducted by Hilton and Ipsos revealed that the opportunity to rest and recharge was the No. 1 reason travelers want to travel this year, across all generations. (The study, which was conducted last July, polled travelers across the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, Japan, China, India, Mexico, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.)
According to Hilton, guests are already willing to go the extra mile to ensure they can get some much-needed shut-eye. The study found that nearly 20% of travelers already go through the inconvenience of toting a pillow from home on their trips, while 10% said they travel with a white-noise machine.
The report's findings were paired with details on a variety of sleep-enhancing amenities found within Hilton's brand portfolio, including examples like the vegan pillow menu at the Hilton London Bankside's Vegan Suite and Tempo by Hilton's "Free-Spirited" nonalcoholic cocktail program, which helps bargoers better regulate their prebedtime drinking. (What makes a pillow vegan, you ask? Think pillows made with materials like organic buckwheat hulls, organic millet husks or recycled polyester.)
Hilton isn't alone in predicting that guests will be willing to invest in accommodations that promise a better night's rest. With amenities like a luxe mattress, blackout shades and soundproofing basically table stakes in the high-end hotel world these days, many hotels are elevating their sleep-friendly bona fides with dedicated room categories.
At the Swissotel Chicago, for example, travelers can book a 1,700-square-foot Vitality Suite, which the hotel says is designed in part to help guests "experience the best sleep of their life." The suite comes complete with a pillow menu, featuring eclectic fill options like Swiss stone pine shavings and spelt; access to expert-designed sound recordings that promote rest; and sleepwear from luxury brand Lunya.
Likewise, the Park Hyatt New York is home to the One Bedroom Sleep Suite by Bryte, which offers guests the chance to experience a Bryte-branded "smart bed," one that uses AI in order to adjust its firmness throughout a guest's various sleep cycles and even logs sleep data. The 900-square-foot accommodation also comes stocked with an essential oil diffuser, a signature sleep-inspired oil blend and sleeping masks.
In Los Angeles, travelers can opt for the Rest & Recovery Suite at the Hotel Figueroa, which can come stocked with a dizzying array of sleep-friendly products. This includes a digitally connected and temperature-adjustable "smart mattress," earplugs, a Core by Hyperice device that uses vibration and sound to aid with meditation, a therapeutic red-light lamp, a Molekule air purifier, high-end pillows from Pluto Pillow and melatonin-infused sleep supplements, to name just a few features.
It's a menu lineup that could be seen by some as a bit over the top. But if you're one of the roughly one in three Americans who, according to the CDC, consistently gets less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, the idea of a sleep-focused suite probably sounds pretty darn appealing.