{photo: Pavillon des Lettres}

As the economic climate has changed, so have travel habits. The modern traveler is looking for new lifestyle experiences such as one-of-a-kind vacations and cultural encounters with strong tendencies towards eco-consciousness, wellbeing and mindfulness.

Special vacations for booklovers are evolving beyond a tours of Keats-Shelley house in Rome or Robert Burns birthplace in Scotland with reading retreat packages using literary inspirations in spatial design. Notable high-end hotels who have embraced and evolved this trend to meet consumer demand or highlight design aesthetics include...

{photo: The Mercer Hotel}

Often hailed as the first hotel to offer "loft living" in 1997, The Mercer Hotel's Christian Liaigre designed lobby, featuring high 14-foot ceilings, a library of books for guests to borrow, and low, plush, intimate seating, doubles as a late-night lounge for it's SoHo guests.

{photo: The Library Hotel}

The Library Hotel, in Koh Samui, Thailand, offers a range of activities related to reading as well as an impressive library. Travelers can spend hours and hours reading on the beach, by the Pool, at the Restaurant. The owners, designers and architects involved in the project boost that "The unit of library by the beach serving as the biggest library for beach resorts."

{photo: Pavillon des Lettres}

Pavillon des Lettres Hotel in Paris pays homage to French and international literature. Each of the 26 rooms takes a theme based on a letter of the alphabet and inspiration from a poet or writer. Walls feature extracts from authors like Shakespeare, Voltaire and Zola.

Like the slow food movement, the slow travel ethos is growing among well-educated, cosmopolitan travelers - fusing travel with culture, architecture, art, design and reading.