The Hotel Room of the Future: Sustainable Hospitality Challenge Invites Students to Rethink Hospitality
What does the hotel room of tomorrow look like? Is it fully circular, AI-optimised, or designed for emotional wellbeing? This year, over 75 universities are answering that question through the Sustainable Hospitality Challenge (SHC)—a global platform empowering students to rethink how we travel, stay, and connect.
Founded by Hotelschool The Hague, SHC 2025 is more ambitious than ever, with two creative tracks that blend engineering, storytelling, and sustainability in bold new ways.
You can read the press release here:
Sustainable Hospitality Challenge 2025 Kicks Off: Students Design the Hotel Room of the Future
How technical innovation and inspiration will shape sustainable hospitality
Amsterdam, The Netherlands – 8 May 2025
The Sustainable Hospitality Challenge (SHC), founded by Hotelschool The Hague, returns in 2025 with a dynamic new format that reflects the evolving landscape of hospitality innovation. It now features two powerful tracks centered around Impact and Inspiration. SHC continues to empower top students from around the world to redefine the future of sustainable travel and tourism.
Over the past decade, SHC has evolved from a student competition into a global platform for innovation, generating hundreds of ideas showcased at leading industry conferences and impacting thousands of industry professionals.
SHC envisions a hospitality industry where sustainability is embedded not only in products and operations, but in the very mindset of its future and current leaders. By fostering creativity, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and purpose-driven innovation, SHC is shaping a new generation that sees sustainability not as a constraint, but as the engine of progress. As it evolves into a year-round platform for ideation and incubation, SHC remains committed to challenging norms, amplifying young voices, and reimagining sustainable hospitality.
New for 2025, SHC introduces two tracks:
- Impact Track – A challenge to design the Hotel Room of the Future, combining sustainability, guest experience, and financial feasibility. Students are encouraged to merge engineering, design, and technology to reimagine the future of in-room hospitality. In collaboration with Guest Supply (a Sysco company), SHC has added a dimension to this track where students will explore waste-reducing technical innovations.
- Inspiration Track – A stage for storytelling and social sustainability. Students, past participants, and young professionals are invited to share personal initiatives and perspectives that inspire more human-centered, inclusive hospitality practices.
Top teams from both tracks will present their ideas at two major global hospitality conferences:
- WTTC Global Summit – September 2025, Rome, Italy
- FHS World – October 2025, Dubai, UAE
Partnered with the World Travel & Tourism Council and event agency The Bench, SHC again provides unparalleled opportunities for students to showcase sustainable hospitality on a global stage.
Backed by key partners such as UN Tourism, the Caribbean Tourism Organization, and the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, SHC 2025 offers unmatched opportunities to engage with industry leaders and investors, helping bring promising ideas closer to market.
With a record 75+ universities participating each year, SHC continues to serve as a launchpad for long-term change, driving innovation and collaboration at the forefront of sustainable hospitality.
To keep up to date with the Sustainable Hospitality Challenge, visit www.sustainablehospitalitychallenge.com/. To get more information about participation or sponsorship opportunities, please reach out to sustainablehc@hotelschool.nl.
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