After the Travel Boom, “Sleep Tourism” and “Slow Tourism” Are on the Rise

What does the future of travel look like? Your hotel bed, apparently. One of the big trends emerging from the 2025 Hilton Trends Report is a growing number of travelers around the world engaging in what’s known in Scotland as “hurkle-durkling.” If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, it means staying in bed after it’s normally time to wake up. (Presumably not in a clinically depressed kind of way.)

According to Hilton’s analysis, around 20% of travelers enjoy engaging in this practice, with that figuring rising to 30% for Zillennials (defined by the hospitality company as anyone born between 1980 and 2006). Their findings also suggest that travelers are willing to pay for a better night’s sleep; among the data cited in Hilton’s analysis is that nearly three-quarters of luxury travelers opted to stay in “hotels with sleep-centric amenities.”

It’s one of a few places in Hilton’s overall report that suggests a growing number of travelers are looking to slow down and savor their experiences. Hilton also points to the growth of “slow tourism,” with significant numbers of travelers seeking out recommendations from locals and prioritizing authenticity when visiting new places with their children.

One of the consequences of slow tourism’s growth is an uptick in international visitors to destinations that had largely catered to domestic travelers. Hilton’s analysis points to the island of Sardinia as one example of this, with a growing number of visitors from the U.S. and Ireland exploring a place that had previously seen most of its visitors come from elsewhere in Italy.

Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta called 2025 “the year of the travel maximizer” in his introduction to the report. As he went on to explain, that means that travelers are seeking out a wide variety of novel experiences when they leave home — which is both understandable and difficult to quantify. Still, it’s a welcome break from the cliché of tourists frantically trying to see every classic landmark and museum in a given destination.