If you want some food in your hotel room, chances are youâll have to put on pants. Pants presentable enough for a walk down to the lobby, where other guests are sipping cappuccinos in lounge chairs, typing away on their laptops. Pants appropriate for the cocktail bar, where a local mixologist is serving up her latest concoction. Pants that are particularly necessary in the first-floor eatery, a cafe that turns into a hip barbecue joint after dark.
For decades, hotel common areas were not designed for congregating. (Just imagine a group meal at the vending machine, or a networking sesh by the ice dispenser.) Noah Silverman, Marriott Internationalâs chief development officer for full-service hotels in North America, says hotel lobbies in particular have long been âpass-through spacesâ that resemble âbowling alleys of marble.â But todayâs hotels are almost as likely to offer up an actual bowling alley. Hospitality giants like Marriott and Hilton, along with their independent competitors, are ditching room service or other in-room amenities in favor of bright, airy lobbies; communal areas with sweeping views; and bountiful pod seatsâall in the hopes of attracting younger, more sociable travelers.

At Ian Schragerâs 370-room Public Hotelâon Manhattanâs Lower East Side, it opened last week with a bash that included a performance by Patti Smithâguests have many options for mingling. Publicâs rooftop terrace offer white couches and skyline vistas. There are three bars, including a lobby hangout and nightspot with 360-degree views of the city. Instead of room service guests can pick from two restaurants: a casual eatery with a grab-and-go option, or the main restaurant, Public Kitchen, which has a smoker and a wood-burning grill to cook a menu designed by Jean-Georges Vongerichten. One of the bars, called Diego, also serves a Vongerichten menu. A nightclub and performance spaceâmuch like the one that helped earn Virgin Hotels Chicago a CondĂŠ Nast Traveler readerâs choice award for best US hotel last yearâwill offer up comedy shows, theatrical performances, concerts, and film screenings. Wifi is free throughout Public, and a room? Rates start at $150 a night.
Schrager, best known as the co-founder of 1970s hotspot Studio 54, and later, boutique hotels, is one of many hoteliers hoping to capitalize on millennialsâ comfort with open-space mingling at work and at home. The replacement of giant in-room hotel desks with shared workspaces mimics the transition from private cubicles to the open-plan office, or from the traditional home office to a laptop and a local cafe. Alexandra Jaritz, who runs Hiltonâs new $100ish-a-night Tru brand, says company research found that guests often want these bigger social spaces, even if they arenât always using them to interact with others. She calls it being âsocially alone.â

âThere is a concept in sociology of a âthird space,'â says Sherry Turkle, professor of social studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has researched the interaction between technology and social interaction. âIt isnât home but it isnât someplace we donât belong. A hotel⌠is such a place.â
Lavish lobbies and communal workspace do come at a cost: the square footage of guest rooms. Taking a page from hostelsâ book, hotels are shrinking the average room, and limiting in-room amenities to just the essentials. Smaller suites mean developers can fit more of them on a single property, and the limited private space drives foot traffic (and wallets) to communal areas for things like food and beer.
A guest room in Marriottâs millennial-geared Moxy brand, for example, is about 186 square feet, compared with 350 square feet for a Marriott-branded property. At Tru hotels, rooms are around 230 square feet, compared with 330 square feet at Hiltonâs similarly priced Hampton Inn chain. A Tru lobby common areaâreferred to as âThe Hiveâ when it launchedâis about 3,000 square feet with swing chairs, a big-screen TV, and a free breakfast bar.Â

At the Sir Adam hotel in Amsterdam, located in the tower that once served as Royal Dutch Shellâs old headquarters, rooms are even tinierâjust 160 square feetâbut the lobby features colorful hanging swings, a cocktail bar, and stadium seating. Lionel Ohayon, founder and CEO of ICRAVE, which designed the hotel, calls the lobby âa piazzaâ meant to help travelers ditch the âsecurity blanketâ of their phones and other devices.
âMost people live an enormous digital life,â Ohayon says. âPeople need to be reintroduced to being in public.â