Abstract:

This study aims to identify the recent trends in tourism and the requirements that hotel managements should respond and adapt to. Senior tourism and backpackers are just two examples of the new pattern of tourists representing the new trends in today’s tourism. Furthermore, the study sheds light on the challenges to the hotel sector resulting from sharing economy and the shift of international hotel chains from owing hotels to franchise management.

The research employs the descriptive approach to analyze these trends on the hotel sector. The study concludes that there are common characteristics between Senior and Backpackers Tourism, such as: off-peak travel, rational spending and having more time. It also finds that hotels are losing to other types of low-cost accommodation, and that many hotels have shifted their strategy by reducing property ownership and, instead, expanding franchising businesses.

Accordingly, the study recommends that hotels shift their focus from attracting the traditional patterns of tourists to the new patterns of tourism.