The hospitality market already has hundreds of hotel brands. The next generation of travellers does not need another hotel with a different logo, fashionable lobby and generic list of experiences.

It needs hotels built around how people actually want to live, travel and spend their time.

The BEST STAY 2027 Student Challenge asks you to create a lifestyle hotel concept that earns the right to exist.

Choose one future traveller and understand how and where they live, what they value, what is missing from their everyday life, why they want to travel and how they want to feel. Then translate those insights into a complete lifestyle hotel product.

Define why the hotel should exist, why this guest would choose a hotel instead of a villa or resort, the location, promise and atmosphere, and how the guest spends mornings, afternoons and evenings. Consider the balance between privacy, connection, freedom and structure, and the spaces, services, programmes and partnerships the experience requires.

Finalists will present their concepts live at BEST STAY 2027 on 19 February at Sheraton Zagreb.

Each finalist will prepare a five-minute live pitch in English, a presentation of no more than eight slides, an updated concept document and experience storyboard, and a short response to a jury question. BEST STAY will provide event access and online presentation coaching for all finalists.

Do not create a building and then search for a guest.

Create the hotel around how the future traveller lives, why they travel, how they want to spend their time and what they should feel when they leave.