Overview

Hotel and Resort Design South (HRDS) is a specialist hospitality design trade expo dedicated exclusively to the hotel, resort, and private island design market across the Southern United States, Caribbean, and Latin America. The 2026 edition takes place on June 9 and 10 at the Miami Beach Convention Center, organised by Elite Exhibitions. It runs co-located with the Cruise Ship Interiors Design Expo Americas (CSI), giving visitors access to both events under one roof. The expo belongs to the fields of hospitality architecture, interior design, FF&E procurement, and the global hospitality supply chain.

Focus

The expo focuses on connecting designers, architects, interior specifiers, and hotel brand procurement teams with over 250 suppliers serving the hotel and resort sector across the South and Latin American markets. Its geographic framing is specific: it addresses the distinct design cultures, climate conditions, and brand ecosystems of the Caribbean, Southern States, and LATAM hospitality markets, rather than operating as a generic global hospitality trade show.

For those tracking how hospitality architecture is evolving as a discipline, ArchUp’s coverage of contemporary hotel design and its relationship to place and urban context provides a useful frame for understanding why region-specific hospitality design platforms like HRDS serve a distinct professional function beyond what generalist trade fairs offer.

Program

The expo runs across two days with exhibition hours from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on June 9, with a Happy Hour drinks reception from 5:00 to 6:00 PM, and from 10:30 AM to 4:00 PM on June 10. The programme includes an Opening Party, Speed Networking sessions, expert talks and keynotes addressing design trends in the Southern States and LATAM region, creative workshops, a Product Showcase highlighting new materials and systems, and multiple hosted networking events.

The conference programme features thought-provoking keynotes and talks by industry practitioners covering topics including the distinct design aesthetics emerging from the Caribbean and Latin American hospitality sectors, sustainability in resort design, and the supply chain dynamics specific to island and remote destination projects. Those following how interior design and architecture intersect in hospitality environments will find a direct reference in ArchUp’s documentation of Keiji Ashizawa and Norm Architects’ tactile interior approach for a high-altitude hotel, which illustrates how material and spatial decisions in hospitality design operate at the intersection of brand, place, and sensory experience.

“HRDS is one of those very few shows where you could truly make the best out of all networking opportunities, educational sessions, and actualisation on the latest trends in the hotel design industry.”

The co-location with CSI Design Expo Americas means visitors gain simultaneous access to suppliers serving both the hotel and resort and cruise ship interior design markets, many of whom overlap in terms of materials, FF&E, and spatial systems. For those interested in how the Anantara brand is expanding into the Miami market through mixed-use hospitality architecture, ArchUp’s coverage of Anantara’s first US property in Miami’s Edgewater district offers a live example of the hospitality design decisions and supply chain relationships that events like HRDS are built to support.

Audience

The expo is free to attend for qualified trade professionals. It targets hotel and resort designers, interior architects, FF&E specifiers, procurement managers, hotel brand representatives, developers, and suppliers operating across the Southern United States, Caribbean, and Latin American hospitality markets. A VIP hosted buyer programme is available for senior industry figures.

Event Details

✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight

Hotel and Resort Design South occupies a well-defined niche in the hospitality design trade calendar: it is not trying to be the Hospitality Design Expo in Las Vegas or the Sleep Event in London. Its geographic specificity around the Southern States, Caribbean, and Latin American markets is both its commercial logic and its design rationale. The hospitality sector in this region operates under a specific set of conditions: high humidity and UV exposure affect material choices, hurricane resilience shapes structural and envelope decisions, and the cultural heterogeneity of the Latin American and Caribbean markets requires a level of design sensitivity that generic global supply chains do not always support. The co-location with CSI is strategically sensible: the overlap between hotel and cruise ship interior design in terms of compact spatial planning, durability requirements, and bespoke FF&E procurement is significant, and the shared audience makes the combination commercially efficient. The conference programme’s focus on regional design cultures is more valuable than it might initially appear: understanding the distinct aesthetic and climatic contexts of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Brazilian resort market is not the same as understanding hospitality design generically, and having those conversations in a dedicated forum rather than within a global mega-show has real professional value. Whether the event has the critical mass of attendees and speakers to sustain that level of specificity is the question its growth over the next few editions will answer.

Closing Note

The expo is a focused and commercially purposeful event in the regional hospitality design calendar. Its geographic specificity and co-location with CSI give it a professional relevance that extends beyond its modest two-day format to practitioners working at the intersection of architecture, interior design, and hospitality in one of the world’s most active resort development regions.