Walk into a hotel lobby at 7 a.m., and you'll likely find guests grabbing coffee, answering emails, or preparing for a day of meetings. Return 12 hours later and that same space has transformed into something entirely different: Colleagues sharing drinks, families gathering before dinner, locals meeting friends and travelers settling in for the evening.
The room hasn't changed. The behavior has.
For decades, hospitality design was driven by programs, amenity checklists, and assumptions about how guests were supposed to use a property. Today, those assumptions are being challenged by a traveler whose needs shift hour by hour, often within the same stay. Business and leisure have merged. Work happens anywhere. Social spaces are expected to support productivity just as easily as relaxation.
A growing number of hospitality designers are starting somewhere different. Instead of asking what spaces a hotel needs, they're asking how guests behave and what environments best support those behaviors. In many ways, behavior has become the new design brief.
The Old Model and Why It's Breaking Down
For years, hotel programming followed a familiar formula. The lobby, business center, restaurant, lounge, fitness center, pool, and meeting spaces each served a clearly defined purpose, occupied a predetermined footprint and were evaluated against projected utilization models. The approach was logical, efficient and largely successful in an era when travel patterns were predictable.
At the same time, boutique and lifestyle brands began shifting the conversation toward more narrative-driven experiences. As social media accelerated the importance of visual storytelling, every guest touchpoint became an opportunity to provide shareable content and designers began borrowing from fashion, residential design and lifestyle brands to create places guests wanted to experience — not simply occupy. Hotels got better at expressing brand. But the underlying assumptions about how guests used space remained largely unchanged.
Today's guests move through a property very differently. A traveler may spend the morning working remotely, grab lunch between meetings, take a fitness class in the afternoon and meet friends for dinner without ever leaving the hotel. Leisure travelers look for social interaction, flexibility and local connection. Multi-generational groups may use the same space in entirely different ways at the same time.
The traditional amenity checklist struggles to accommodate this reality. It assumes a guest journey is linear and predictable: check in, dine, sleep, check out. In practice, guest behavior is far more fluid. The result is often a collection of spaces that appear complete on paper but underperform in operation, whether that's an oversized breakfast room, an underutilized business center or a lobby that empties once morning arrivals have passed.
This isn't solely a developer issue or an operator issue. It's both. Developers continue to establish the physical footprint and investment priorities of a project, while operators and brand teams have a front-row seat to how guests use those environments once the doors open. All three stakeholders are recognizing that behavior should inform decisions from the beginning, not after opening. The result is a growing emphasis on adaptable spaces that support multiple functions throughout the day and evolve alongside changing guest expectations.
Today, the most successful hospitality environments are not defined by a list of amenities. They are defined by how effectively they support the people using them.
What Behavior-Driven Design Actually Means
Behavior-driven design starts with a simple premise: understanding what guests actually do, not just what they say they do or what we assume they will do. Instead of beginning with a list of required amenities and predetermined square footages, the process begins with observation. That can mean site visits, guest journey mapping, shadowing staff and visitors, studying movement patterns throughout the day and listening closely to operators who understand their guests' expectations, frustrations, and habits.
Operators carry institutional knowledge that no amount of desk research can replicate. Combined with firsthand observation, that knowledge can reveal patterns, pain points, and opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked. The goal is to uncover meaningful insights about how people move, gather, work, relax and interact with a space so design decisions are grounded in real behavior, not industry convention.
To be most effective, this happens before key programming decisions have been finalized. When behavioral research is conducted early, it becomes a foundational input to the design process, helping define not only what spaces are needed, but how they should function, connect, and evolve throughout the guest journey.
It often validates certain assumptions, but just as importantly, it challenges others. Some of the most valuable discoveries come from identifying an unexpected behavior, a desire for flexibility, a preference for social connection over additional amenities or an operational friction point that was previously overlooked. Those insights can reshape everything from space allocation and circulation patterns to service models and guest experiences.
The most memorable examples are where research surfaces a behavior no one anticipated, something that leads to reconfiguring a space entirely, rethinking how it is operated or redefining the guest experience from the ground up. That kind of discovery is not a disruption to the design process. It is exactly what the process is designed to produce.
Where It Shows Up Most
Nowhere is the shift toward behavior-driven design more visible than in the lobby and food-and-beverage spaces. These are the social heart of the hotel, but they are also the spaces experiencing the most dramatic changes in how guests use them.
The traditional lobby was largely designed around arrival and departure, often organized around a front desk that served as the focal point and orientation point. Today, as service models become more mobile and decentralized, the space itself must communicate how it should be used, without relying solely on signage. That requires a much deeper understanding of the guest journey, where people naturally pause, what they are trying to accomplish upon arrival, and how they navigate the environment.
Wayfinding becomes a series of environmental cues, embedded within the design through sightlines, access to daylight, visual landmarks, changes in materiality, lighting and furniture placement. When done successfully, guests instinctively understand where to go, where to gather and where to seek assistance without feeling consciously directed.
Behavioral research has also reinforced that successful lobbies are no longer designed for a single moment in time. The furniture and lighting need to support shifting behaviors throughout the day without requiring a complete reset. A lobby that functions well at 8 a.m. must perform equally well at 2 p.m. and again at 8 p.m., often supporting completely different activities. The most effective spaces achieve this through choice and flexibility. A mix of lounge seating, worktables, communal gathering spaces, banquettes, and smaller two-to-four-person groupings that are approachable and adaptable and easily movable pieces that allow staff to reconfigure as demand shifts.
Lighting plays an equally important role: A layered approach that combines ambient, task, accent, and decorative lighting can subtly shift throughout the day, providing comfort and visibility while reinforcing focal points and the overall brand experience. Lighting levels should evolve from day to night, helping the lobby take on a different energy without losing its sense of cohesion.
Thoughtful acoustic strategies, soft materials, area rugs, and sound management further support comfort and usability, while durable, easily maintained furniture and finishes help the space adapt over time. The result is a lobby where guests can intuitively understand where to work, gather, wait, or socialize, while experiencing the space as one cohesive environment.
The same evolution is taking place within food-and-beverage environments. Five years ago, the café, restaurant, bar, and lobby often functioned as separate destinations with clearly defined boundaries. Today, those distinctions are far more fluid. Guests expect a single environment to support coffee meetings in the morning, remote work throughout the day, casual gatherings in the afternoon, and social experiences in the evening. As a result, F&B spaces are being conceived less as standalone dining venues and more as adaptable social infrastructure that activates the property throughout the day.
The most successful examples are not trying to be everything at once; instead, they are carefully organized around different behavioral zones. High-energy areas near bars and service points encourage interaction and visibility, while quieter work-oriented zones provide comfort, power access, and a degree of separation.
Softer lounge environments support longer stays and flexible gathering areas can easily accommodate informal meetings, events or changing occupancy demands. Through a thoughtful mix of seating types, lighting conditions and operational flexibility, these spaces can evolve seamlessly over the course of a day while maintaining a clear identity.
Behavioral design does not stop at the lobby or restaurant door. Some of the most meaningful guest experiences occur in spaces that were once considered secondary: The arrival sequence, porte cochère, elevator lobbies, corridors, pre-function spaces, and guestroom entries. These transitional moments often shape first impressions, influence comfort and orientation, and determine how confidently guests navigate a property. A well-designed transition space reduces friction and builds guest confidence at every step of the journey.
Guestrooms are also being re-evaluated through a behavioral lens, with greater attention to how travelers use the room: additional power for device charging, open shelving or cubbies for organizing belongings and horizontal surfaces that function as a genuine workspace. The question is no longer what type of space is being designed. It is what behaviors need to be supported — and where.
What Owners and Developers Need to Know
For owners and developers, the value of behavior-driven design ultimately comes down to performance. While great design is important, the real measure of success is whether guests use the spaces as intended and whether those spaces deliver stronger operational and financial outcomes. One of the clearest indicators is utilization. When public spaces are designed around actual guest behaviors, they tend to remain active throughout the day instead of peaking during a single use period.
At the New Orleans Marriott Warehouse Arts District, for example, reimagining the lobby by relocating the bar and creating a more residential "great room" experience dramatically changed how guests interacted with the space. What had once functioned primarily as a pass-through area became a destination in its own right, supporting work, socializing, informal meetings and relaxation throughout the day. The result was a more welcoming environment, stronger guest satisfaction feedback and operational efficiencies that allowed the property to manage staffing more effectively.
The most common objection to this approach is the perception that behavioral research adds time and cost to an already complex development process. Owners are under pressure to control budgets, accelerate schedules, and deliver predictable returns, making any additional step subject to scrutiny. The reality, however, is that behavioral research is not about validating what we already know; it is about reducing risk before costly decisions are embedded into the built environment.
A relatively modest investment in understanding guest behaviors, operational patterns, and points of friction can prevent expensive missteps later, whether that means overbuilding an underutilized amenity, allocating space inefficiently, or overlooking operational challenges that impact long-term performance. By identifying what guests value most, how staff work, and where opportunities exist to improve the experience, owners and developers can make more informed investment decisions, directing resources toward elements that will have the greatest impact on utilization, guest satisfaction, and overall property performance.
In that sense, behavior-driven design is not an added expense; it is a strategy for maximizing the value of every design decision that follows.
Listening Before Designing
The hospitality industry did not embrace behavior-driven design because it was trendy. It embraced it because guest expectations, travel patterns, and ways of using space have fundamentally changed. Today's travelers move fluidly between work and leisure, seek greater flexibility and expect environments that adapt to their needs.
The difference is not that guests have become more demanding; it is that we now have the tools, research, and insight to better understand how they experience a property. By observing behavior before the first floor plan is drawn, designers can make more informed decisions about programming, operations, circulation and the guest journey. This requires curiosity, careful observation and, at times, a willingness to challenge long-held assumptions about how hospitality spaces should function.
For owners, operators and designers alike, the implications are significant. Spaces that align with real guest behavior tend to perform better, remain active longer, and create experiences that feel intuitive. In a competitive market where experience is the ultimate differentiator, success is no longer defined by the number of amenities a property offers, but by how effectively those amenities reflect the way people live, work, gather and travel.
Ultimately, behavior-driven design is not about predicting the future. It is about paying attention. Every occupied lounge chair, every activated lobby corner, every pathway guests choose instead of the one intended tells a story. The most successful hospitality projects are the ones that listen first and design accordingly.
Lisa Haude, ASID, RID, NCIDQ is a principal at Studio RYS, where she applies her deep expertise and passion for design to every facet of the firm’s work. Her intuitive leadership, strategic insight, and collaborative approach help foster strong client relationships, expand the studio’s design capabilities, and ensure every project embraces a thoughtful approach rooted in storytelling and innovation.