Hotels are no longer just for sleeping and meeting. Millennials, who hold the interest of pretty much all brands these days just as Baby Boomers did for decades before them, are all about creating and selling experiences, so hotel brands—fearing they’ll lose them all to Airbnb—are attempting to up their game.
One way Marriott has made its move in this department is by partnering with Swedish furniture retailer IKEA in 2013 to create Moxy Hotels, a funky economy-tier brand concept chain that launched in Europe and is starting to pop up in the US. The move followed rumors in 2012 that IKEA was planning its own budget hotel chain to appeal to millennials.