Online reviews beat hotel brand names by more than four to one when Gen Z chooses where to sleep, according to Rival Technologies research released in August 2026. Among 878 travelers aged 18 to 29 surveyed across the U.S. and Canada in July 2026, 61% named online reviews as their primary booking influence — compared with just 14% who cited a hotel's brand name. The findings carry direct implications for hospitality operators who have long invested in brand-recognition advertising to win younger guests.
What Drives the Decision
Beyond reviews, practical amenities dominate Gen Z's checklist. Nearly half (48%) say features such as a pool, gym, or breakfast influence their choice of property. Free breakfast (56%) and free Wi-Fi (50%) rank on par with loyalty rewards (48%), while social media influences only 12% of booking decisions — a figure that challenges common assumptions about how this demographic shops for travel. Qualitative responses reinforced the pattern: participants described ideal stays in terms of location, stress-free planning, and value rather than brand prestige.
Hotel operators also face a structural challenge in accommodation preference. Only 43% of Gen Z respondents default to a hotel, while 27% say their choice depends on the trip and 21% select Airbnb — meaning the majority of this generation enters any given trip as genuinely undecided about accommodation type. That fluidity makes the review-and-amenity stack even more critical as a conversion tool, since brand inertia offers little protection against a better-reviewed alternative.
Loyalty, Age, and the U.S.–Canada Split
Loyalty program interest does grow within the cohort: enrollment appetite nearly doubles from 13% among 18-to-20-year-olds to 24% among 25-to-29-year-olds, suggesting properties can cultivate repeat business as Gen Z guests mature — but they must earn it through experience rather than inherit it through brand familiarity. Alongside loyalty, interest in upgrades, flexible cancellation, and early or late check-in rises in tandem with age.
Geographic differences are also actionable. Canadian Gen Z lean harder on reviews (66% versus 57% in the U.S.) and are more likely to skip loyalty programs entirely (21% versus 13%). U.S. Gen Z, meanwhile, place greater weight on free Wi-Fi (57% versus 43%) and digital check-in (25% versus 12%) — a gap that suggests technology-forward hospitality operations may resonate differently depending on which side of the border a property sits.
"Gen Z is one of the travel industry's most important growth audiences, but many assumptions about how they make decisions no longer hold," said Paula Catoira, Chief Marketing Officer at Rival Group. "Reviews, recommendations and authentic experiences carry significant weight. Understanding why those choices are made requires ongoing conversations rather than occasional surveys."
What It Means for Operators
For restaurant and hospitality operators managing food and beverage programs within hotels, the prominence of free breakfast — cited by 56% of respondents — reinforces the value of on-property dining as a booking driver, not merely a revenue line. Bundling breakfast into rate packages may function as a more effective acquisition tool with Gen Z than brand-level marketing spend. The study also found that 84% of Gen Z say the most meaningful trip is one that changes how they think, and 79% value experiences they do not photograph — a signal that authentic, substantive guest programming outperforms Instagram-optimized activations.
The study surveyed 443 U.S. and 435 Canadian participants using Rival's conversational research platform, combining quantitative and qualitative feedback in a single 10-minute survey. The full report is available at rivaltech.com/gen-z-travel.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
