Most of the characteristics we associate with hotels - the welcoming yet alienating effect they have on our psyches - we absorbed from the artists, musicians, and filmmakers who have long been fascinated with the relationship between our physical travels and our spiritual journeys.

Hotels like Mariott and Hilton are jumping into the microhotel market that up to now, has been dominated ro by small operators like Arlo,  YOTEL, and Pod, for the past decade. But millennial demand for more communal spaces, smaller rooms, and lower cost is forcing the big chains to freshen up their brand and drop their costs.   

Today, a look at hotels. 

GUESTS: 

• Hannah Sampson is a staff writer at The Washington Post where she reports on travel news. 
• Suzanne Joinson is British author and a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester in West Sussex, England. She’s the author of A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar and The Photographer’s Wife. She is a contributor to The New York Times. 
• Leo Mazow is the Cochrane curator of American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the author of Edward Hopper and the American Hotel

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