Luxury travel is changing as travellers increasingly look beyond grand hotels and expensive surroundings, with food, wellness, personal service and a stronger connection to the destination becoming part of what defines a high-end stay.
For years, luxury hospitality was closely associated with large properties, elaborate interiors and visible signs of wealth. That definition is becoming less clear as travellers place greater value on experiences and the character of a place.
Speaking at the Euronews Travel & Tourism Summit 2026 in Brussels, Marie-France Perrel, Head of Business Development, Hotels at the Michelin Guide, said the meaning of luxury hospitality has changed significantly.
“Luxury today is completely different than what it was,” Perrel said. She argued that luxury is no longer defined by details such as the amount of marble in a hotel bathroom or the number of rooms in a property.
Instead, travellers are increasingly interested in hotels that give them a sense of place and connect them with their surroundings. Perrel described modern luxury as an ecosystem that can bring together hospitality, food, wellness, service and the destination itself.
Food is becoming an important part of that equation. Eating has always been closely linked to travel, but Michelin is seeing signs that travellers are increasingly treating food and accommodation as parts of the same trip rather than separate experiences.
Perrel said Michelin’s data shows that people searching for hotels in Northern Europe were also looking for nearby restaurants during the same session. The pattern suggests that where travellers eat can be closely connected to where they choose to stay.
There is also growing interest in what Perrel described as “intentional travel around food”, where the meal itself becomes a reason for taking the trip.
Travellers may book a walking food tour, visit a destination because of a particular cuisine or travel after seeing a dish featured on television. The attraction is not simply eating while away from home, but experiencing food in the place where it is made and understood.
“They want to have that same authentic pizza or whatever that may be,” Perrel said, highlighting how a particular dish can become part of the motivation for a journey.
The relationship between Michelin and travel is not new. The Michelin Guide was first published in France in 1900, originally providing motorists with practical information that included places to eat and stay. Michelin began awarding stars to restaurants in 1926.
Hotels have been part of Michelin’s wider guide activity for decades, but the company introduced the Michelin Key in 2024 as a dedicated distinction for outstanding hotel experiences.
The Michelin Key system is intended to identify hotels that offer a notable overall experience rather than simply focusing on traditional measures of luxury. The distinction is awarded at three levels.
For 2026, Michelin’s global selection includes 2,832 Key hotels across 79 destinations. Of those, 2,020 have one key, 657 have two keys and 155 have three keys. Michelin added 470 hotels to the selection this year, while 18 properties received three keys for the first time.
According to Michelin, one key represents a “very special stay”, while two keys indicate an “exceptional stay”. Three keys are reserved for an “extraordinary stay” considered to offer the highest level of experience in the selection.
Perrel described the three-key experience as the kind of hotel stay that could become the centrepiece of a major trip.
Yet the range of hotels included in Michelin’s selection also reflects how varied luxury travel has become. The category can include established grand hotels, independent properties, smaller boutique hotels and retreats with very different designs and approaches to hospitality.
For Perrel, that variety is an important part of the current luxury market. There is no single style or physical appearance that automatically defines a luxury hotel.
“What I love about it is that it’s not cookie-cutter,” she said. “Luxury doesn’t look one way. It’s a broad spectrum.”
That shift also changes how travellers might approach the process of planning a holiday. Rather than choosing a destination first and then searching through hotels, Perrel suggested starting with the property itself.
Her advice was to think about a trip “backwards”: find a hotel that genuinely appeals to you and then decide to visit the destination where it is located.
The approach reflects a broader change in the way luxury travel is being defined. A hotel can now be part of the reason to visit a place, rather than simply somewhere to sleep after arriving. Food, local character, wellness and the quality of the experience can all shape that decision.
As travellers become more interested in what happens around the hotel as well as inside it, luxury hospitality is moving further away from a single image of grand interiors and formal service. Increasingly, the value of a stay is tied to how well the hotel connects the traveller with the experience of being there.
