NEW YORK, Jan 16 — From castles to treehouses to igloos, there’s a wide range of alternative accommodation out there for travellers looking for something a little different for their vacations.

According to research published today by Booking.com, 37 per cent of global travellers plan to book a stay in this kind of unconventional accommodation in 2019.

Why are alternative accommodation choices proving popular with vacationers? While their unusual architecture evidently offers the lure of the exotic, there are other reasons at play.

The desire to be different, for example, sees 26 per cent of the survey’s respondents say that they like unconventional accommodation so they can seem like a trendsetter. For almost half of respondents (49 per cent), living like a local is the priority.

And yet, vacationers don’t necessarily have to scale trees to get a change of perspective. According to the research, 30 per cent of global travellers plan to book a stay in a villa or holiday home, and an equal share of travellers (30 per cent) would book an apartment in 2019.

There’s nothing unconventional about this kind of accommodation, yet for 49 per cent of respondents, home-type lodgings allow travellers to discover parts of their destination they wouldn’t have explored if they had stayed in hotel rooms.

There’s also a financial incentive, with 45 per cent of those polled stating that home-type accommodation lets them feel that they are getting the best value for money.

The figures are based on two surveys commissioned by Booking.com. The first independently led survey polled 53,492 respondents across 31 markets. Participants responded to an online survey between October 16 and November 12, 2018.

The second independently conducted survey polled 21,500 participants (including 1,000 each from Australia, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, China, Brazil, India, US, UK, Russia, Indonesia, Colombia and South Korea; and 500 each from Japan, New Zealand, Thailand, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, Croatia, Taiwan, Mexico, Netherlands, Sweden, Singapore and Israel).

Participants completed an online survey between August 10 and August 30, 2018. — AFP-Relaxnews