Hotel booking sites are betting that in 2026 travellers will not just ask where a property is, but what it used to be.

A new breed of “salvaged stays” is turning disused courthouses, warehouses, schools and even bank headquarters into design-led hotels that promise both a lighter footprint and a better story to tell when guests return home.

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From marketing buzzword to measurable travel trend

The term “salvaged stay” emerged in late 2025 from the Hotels.com team within Expedia Group, which singled out adaptive reuse hotels as one of its top global travel trends for 2026. The company’s Unpack ’26 insights report highlighted strong year on year growth in searches for properties that preserve historic shells while installing contemporary rooms and amenities inside. In the brand’s own language, a salvaged stay is an upcycled hotel created from a structure that has already had a first life, whether as a school, factory, post office or financial institution.

While heritage conversions have existed for decades, what is new is the way large booking platforms are now clustering them under a single, consumer-friendly label and using data to back the story. Hotels.com’s “Hotels of the Year” list for 2026 is heavy with salvaged stays, reflecting a broad shift in traveller priorities since the pandemic era. Where sustainability credentials and a sense of place were once treated as add-ons, they are now central selling points, particularly for younger travellers and frequent city breakers.

Industry analysts say the rise of salvaged stays should also be read alongside a wider boom in adaptive reuse. Real estate researchers report that in the United States alone, more than one third of all conversion projects in 2023 involved hotels, with thousands of units created from existing structures rather than new builds. For the hospitality sector, that pipeline is beginning to translate into new addresses that deliberately tell the story of how, and from what, they were made.

What exactly counts as a “salvaged stay” in 2026?

There is no formal legal definition for salvaged stays, but common threads are emerging as the idea spreads. At its core, a salvaged stay is a hotel that has been created primarily through adaptive reuse of an existing building, with a specific emphasis on preserving and celebrating the original character. It is not simply a refurbishment of an older hotel. Instead, the building must have been designed for a completely different purpose, often civic, industrial or commercial.

Examples run from monasteries and convents reborn as boutique retreats to midcentury airline terminals, grain warehouses and even telephone company headquarters now operating as upscale hotels. The conversion must be central to the guest experience rather than hidden behind a standard brand template. That might mean retaining original staircases and stonework in public areas, naming restaurants after former occupants or displaying archival photographs and artefacts that reveal the building’s previous life.

Energy and material savings also tend to be part of the narrative. Many salvaged stays are marketed as lower-carbon alternatives to ground-up new construction. By reusing foundations, frames and facades, developers avoid the emissions associated with producing and transporting new steel and concrete. Some go further by installing high-efficiency building systems, triple-glazed windows and, increasingly, on-site renewables, positioning themselves at the intersection of heritage tourism and climate-conscious travel.

Data behind the demand for upcycled hotels

Booking data from Expedia Group suggests that passenger curiosity about salvaged stays is more than just a social media trend. The company’s analysis of global hotel searches between January 2024 and December 2025 showed triple-digit percentage growth for several high-profile conversion properties, particularly those that lean into their origin stories with strong visuals and storytelling. Travellers appear especially interested in hotels that combine dramatic architecture with recognisable backstories, such as former schools and banks.

Beyond individual properties, the adaptive reuse pipeline feeding the salvaged stay movement is expanding. RentCafe’s tracking of conversions across the United States indicates that nearly 24,000 apartment units opened in 2024 via reuse of existing structures, with hotels making up more than one third of all such projects the previous year. Developers are increasingly comfortable with the regulatory and engineering challenges involved in rescuing older buildings, a shift that has implications for future hotel supply in historic districts and central business areas.

Urban economics are also driving the trend. With office vacancy rates elevated in many cities and investors facing pressure to decarbonise portfolios, converting underused buildings to hospitality is becoming more attractive. In San Antonio, for example, a largely vacant downtown office tower that once housed a telecommunications giant is now slated to become a JW Marriott hotel, with the preserved facade of a 1920s movie theatre forming a dramatic secondary entrance. Similar proposals are on the table in other North American cities where tourism is rebounding faster than office demand.

Case studies: schools, courthouses and warehouses reborn

The salvaged stays highlighted for 2026 span continents and building types, illustrating how flexible the concept can be. In Kyoto, Hotel Seiryu Kyoto Kiyomizu occupies a 1930s elementary school overlooking the Higashiyama district. Designers retained the arched windows, sweeping staircases and broad corridors of the original institution while carving out 48 contemporary rooms, a rooftop bar and spa facilities. According to Expedia Group’s data, searches for the hotel rose sharply in 2025 as international visitors returned to Japan and sought out lodgings with a sense of narrative.

In Amsterdam, Rosewood’s first Dutch property has moved into a former courthouse near the Prinsengracht canals. Opened in spring 2025, the hotel blends restored courtrooms, oak panelling and stone staircases with new guest wings and a spa. Public areas showcase the building’s judicial past through art and subtle design cues, offering guests a glimpse of local history without leaving the property. The combination of a luxury brand and a storied structure has helped the hotel gain attention as one of Europe’s flagship salvaged stays.

On the United States West Coast, Populus Seattle opened in May 2025 as a 120-room boutique hotel set within a 1907 warehouse in the city’s Pioneer Square district. The project preserved the brick exterior and reworked the interior around a central lightwell that draws daylight and fresh air into the heart of the building. A rooftop bar and ground-floor restaurant, both open to the public, are intended to knit the redeveloped structure back into the neighbourhood fabric after years of underuse.

The TWA Hotel at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport has become another high-profile example frequently cited in discussions of salvaged stays. While it predates the current branding, the 2019 project transformed Eero Saarinen’s 1962 flight centre into a midcentury modern hotel and events complex, with new wings added for guest rooms. The swooping concrete terminal, once threatened with demolition, now serves as a lobby, lounge and museum of aviation history. Its success has helped demonstrate that even highly specialised transport infrastructure can be reimagined as hospitality space.

Sustainability promises and the realities behind the bricks

Developers and booking platforms alike are quick to frame salvaged stays as an inherently sustainable choice, and there is some evidence to support that claim. Building researchers have long argued that the greenest building is often the one that already exists, since demolition and new construction carry heavy carbon costs. By retaining large portions of an original structure, adaptive reuse can dramatically reduce the embodied emissions associated with a hotel project, even before operating efficiencies are improved.

Cities are beginning to recognise this benefit in their climate strategies. Some local governments now offer tax incentives or expedited permitting for projects that preserve historic buildings while upgrading energy performance. Hotels that achieve zero operational emissions, such as the all-electric Hotel Marcel in New Haven, are held up as proof that older shells can be retrofitted to meet rigorous contemporary standards. In that case, a 1960s tyre company office building was converted into a 165-room hotel designed to run entirely on renewable electricity, with high-efficiency systems and solar arrays providing power.

Yet sustainability experts caution that not every salvaged stay delivers the same environmental gains. The carbon advantage of reuse can be offset if extensive structural changes are required or if hotels adopt energy-intensive luxury features. Long-haul flights to reach remote heritage properties also complicate the picture for individual travellers seeking to lower their footprint. For now, most independent assessments suggest that, all else equal, choosing an upcycled hotel in a city centre is likely to have a lower construction-related impact than staying in a comparable new-build tower nearby.

Cultural storytelling and the appeal of sleeping in a story

If carbon accounting explains part of the salvaged stay phenomenon, culture and psychology explain the rest. Surveys conducted for the Unpack ’26 report indicate that a majority of respondents value “staying somewhere with a story” and are prepared to pay a modest premium for experiences that feel unique to a destination. Former schools, monasteries and civic buildings offer an immediate narrative hook, particularly when guest rooms and common spaces are designed to highlight the past rather than erase it.

Travel marketers have been quick to recognise how easily salvaged stays lend themselves to visual storytelling. Social media feeds are full of images of guests posing beside courtroom benches, in repurposed gymnasiums or under restored vaulted ceilings. For many travellers, especially from younger demographics, the chance to say they slept in an old post office or bank vault is part of the value proposition. The building becomes a character in the trip, not just a backdrop.

Local communities sometimes see benefits as well. Transforming long-vacant or under-maintained buildings into hotels can bring new foot traffic, restaurant openings and public spaces to historic districts. Heritage organisations point to successful conversions, such as convents in Old San Juan or railway stations in the Alps, as proof that tourism revenue can help fund preservation. At the same time, there is an ongoing debate over whether luxury hotel conversions contribute to the loss of social infrastructure when schools, town halls or public baths are taken out of civic use.

Risks, regulations and the future of salvaged stays

Behind every polished salvaged stay lies a complex web of planning approvals and engineering challenges. Older structures often come with tricky floor plates, limited ceiling heights, outdated wiring and, in some cases, hazardous materials that must be carefully removed. Meeting modern fire and accessibility codes while maintaining historic details can add years and significant cost to a project. This helps explain why many of the highest profile salvaged stays sit at the upper end of the market, backed by major brands or institutional investors with the patience and capital to see them through.

Heritage advocates sometimes worry that the surge in interest could lead to insensitive conversions if demand for salvaged stays outpaces careful oversight. In response, several countries have tightened guidelines for alterations to listed buildings and strengthened consultation requirements with local conservation bodies. The most celebrated projects tend to be those that balance commercial needs with a clear respect for original design, using reversible interventions where possible and making space for public access to historically significant areas.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2026 and beyond, pipeline announcements suggest the salvaged stay category will continue to grow. In London, a former bank on Piccadilly is being transformed into a luxury hotel scheduled to open next year, while the long-anticipated redeployment of the Admiralty Arch as a Waldorf Astoria-branded property is moving forward. In North America, plans for further office-to-hotel conversions are being floated in cities from New Orleans to Vancouver, often linked to wider efforts to revive downtown cores.

For travellers, the practical takeaway is that salvaged stays are likely to be an increasingly familiar option on booking sites, sitting alongside conventional hotels and vacation rentals. Whether framed as a sustainability choice, a design statement or a way to sleep inside a chapter of local history, upcycled hotels are poised to play a prominent role in how the world checks in during the second half of the decade.