Short answer: an accommodation format is a choice of demand segment, not of a building. Hotels, B&Bs, aparthotels, condo-hotels, co-living and non-hotel formats live on different guests, and the appetite for “a different way to stay” is measurable: 89% of travellers look for experiences beyond standard hotels, and 75% want to try a non-standard format on a trip (Booking.com surveys, 2025–2026). The heavyweight segment is business: 1.65 billion business-event participants in 2025 and $1.3 trillion in direct spending. And the EU market is a market of small properties: 680 thousand accommodations averaging about 44 places each. Below — the map of formats, the segments, and the rules of choice.
What counts as an accommodation format?
A format is the bundle of three things: the type of inventory (rooms, apartments, beds), the service model (reception or none, breakfast included or not), and the demand segment it is all assembled for. The same building can run as a small hotel with a reception, as an aparthotel with kitchens, or as co-living with shared spaces — with different demand segments each time: short nights, business trips, months-long stays. The choice of format is therefore a management decision made before the renovation: it sets the pricing model, the regulatory requirements, the software and the audience itself. Detailed breakdowns of each format are coming as articles of this topic; here is the map, one paragraph per format.
Which formats are there?
The classic hotel — rooms, a reception, daily housekeeping. The B&B and guesthouse — few rooms, breakfast included, the owner lives in the house. The aparthotel — apartment-style rooms with a kitchen and hotel service, living on business trips and long stays: the 28+ night segment produced 17% of Airbnb gross nights in 2025. The condo-hotel — apartments owned by individuals under single management. Co-living — long-term living with shared spaces and a community. And the non-hotel formats that stopped being exotic: interest in French gîtes grew 20% year over year, in Japanese ryokans 9% (Booking.com search data, summer 2026 versus summer 2025). A story of its own is the albergo diffuso, the “hotel that is not built”: a hotel scattered across the historic buildings of a village under a single service; the concept was born in Italy in the early 1980s, codified by law in 1998 and internationally recognized in 2010, and it has since been exported as far as Japan.
Who travels: segments on top of formats?
A format without a segment is empty rooms. The largest B2B segment is MICE and business events: 1.65 billion participants worldwide in 2025 and $1.3 trillion in direct spending (+12.2% over 2019, per the study modelled with Oxford Economics). A small property enters through mini-groups and corporates of 5–15 people: the operations differ from single bookings — deposits, cancellation rules, rooming lists — but no conference hall is required. The second segment is long stays: the same 28+ nights — working from a trip, home renovation, studies. The third is families and weekend mini-groups, for whom room configuration matters more than catalogue stars. Hosting groups is a subject of an upcoming article.
How big is the market around you?
The industry’s scale sets the frame: travel & tourism contributed $11.6 trillion to the world economy in 2025 — 9.8% of global GDP and 366 million jobs, roughly 1 in 9 worldwide; domestic demand $5.63 trillion, international $2.02 trillion (WTTC research). Inside the EU, the market is a market of small properties: more than 680 thousand tourist accommodations with 29.7 million places — about 44 places per property on average; Italy and Croatia together account for 57% of all properties. 71% of European trips are domestic, yet foreign guests’ nights have grown 57.6% since 2010 versus 26.3% for domestic tourists: external markets grow faster, and that is a chance for small properties, not only chains.
How do you choose a format for a first property?
Follow demand and operations, not fashion. Four questions instead of inspiration: who is the segment and how will they find you; what the format demands of the inventory (kitchens, configuration, shared spaces); which revenue model — nightly bookings, months, events; and what you are ready to serve yourself, without staff. The market points the way: the EU is a market of small properties averaging about 44 places, not only large hotels. From the format — on to budget, software and processes: the choice of software is covered in the neighbouring product topic, and the full path of “how to open a small hotel”, from premises to the first booking, is a future pillar article of this topic.
In practice, segments differ in operations, not in signage. Long stays change the pricing model: the bill runs in weeks and months, not nights, and the guest expects a kitchen and a place to work, not daily housekeeping. Groups — mini-groups and corporates — change the money: a deposit and prepayment before arrival, cancellation rules for the whole group at once, a rooming list instead of single bookings. Short transit nights are the opposite: booking and check-in speed matter more than extras. The same inventory in different segments is a different set of processes.
Data is current as of 6 October 2026: WTTC — 2025 data, Eurostat — March 2026 (2024 data), Booking.com’s surveys and search trends — the September 2026 release, business events — the August 2026 model.
Articles coming in this topic: the aparthotel, the condo-hotel, co-living and long stays, the MICE segment, the B&B and guesthouse, “How to open a small hotel”, an overview of non-hotel formats, and group bookings of 5–15 — from deposits to rooming lists.