A hotel is an establishment that offers paid accommodation, usually short-term. Hotels often provide a number of additional services for guests, such as a restaurant, swimming pool, or babysitting. Some hotels have conference services and meeting rooms and encourage groups to hold conventions and meetings at their location. Hotels differ from motels in that most motels have exterior entrances to rooms, while hotels tend to have interior entrances to rooms, which can increase guest safety and present a more unique image. The basic one-bedroom accommodation with just a bed, a closet, a small table, and a sink has been largely replaced by rooms with en-suite bathrooms and climate control. Other features found can be a telephone, an alarm clock, a television, and broadband internet connectivity. Food and drink can be provided by a mini-bar (often including a small refrigerator) containing snacks and drinks (to be paid on departure), and tea and coffee-making facilities (cups, spoons, electric kettle and sachets containing instant). coffee, tea bags, sugar and cream or milk).
In the UK, a hotel is required by law to serve food and beverages to all visitors within certain set hours; To avoid this requirement it is not uncommon to find “private hotels” that are not subject to this requirement. However, in Japan, the capsule hotel offers minimal room space and facilities. The cost and quality of hotels are often indicative of the variety and type of services available. Due to the huge increase in tourism around the world during the last decades of the 20th century, standards, especially those of smaller establishments, have improved considerably. For the sake of greater comparability, rating systems have been introduced, with a one to five star rating being the most common.
“Boutique hotel” is a term originating in North America to describe intimate hotel environments, generally luxurious or extravagant. Boutique hotels differ from larger brand or chain hotels by providing an exceptional and personalized level of accommodation, services and facilities. Boutique hotels are furnished in a thematic, elegant and / or ambitious way. Although they are usually considerably smaller than a conventional hotel (ranging from 3 to 100 rooms), boutique hotels are generally equipped with telephone and Wi-Fi Internet connections, honesty bars, and often cable TV / pay. Guest services are staffed by hotel staff 24 hours a day. Many boutique hotels have dining facilities on-site, and most offer bars and lounges that may also be open to the general public. Of the total travel market, a small percentage are discerning travelers, who place great importance on privacy, luxury and service delivery.
As this market is typically corporate travelers, the market segment is non-seasonal, high-performance, and repetitive, and therefore is one of the boutique hotel operators as its main source of income. Several hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, such as the Ritz Hotel in London, UK (‘Putting on The Ritz’) and the Chelsea Hotel in New York City, the subject of several songs and also the setting. of the alleged stabbing of Nancy Spungen by her boyfriend Sid Vicious. Folklore hotels like these two are also frequently frequented by celebrities, as is the case with both the Ritz and Chelsea. Other famous hotels include the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Bel-Air Hotel and the Chateau Marmont, in California, USA, the Watergate complex in Washington DC, the Astoria Hotel in Saint Petersburg, Russia, the George V Hotel and the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, Palazzo Hotel Versace in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, Hotel Hermitage and Hotel de Paris in Monaco (on the French Riviera) and Hotel Leningradskaya in Moscow. Many hotels can be considered destinations in themselves, due to the unusual characteristics of the accommodation and / or its immediate surroundings.
Treehouse Hotels Some hotels, such as the Costa Rica Tree House in the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, or the Treetops Hotel in the Aberdare National Park, Kenya, are built with living trees as structural elements, which makes them tree houses. The Ariau Towers near Manaus, Brazil, are located in the middle of the Amazon, on the Rio Negro. Bill Gates even invested and built a suite there with internet / satellite phone. Another hotel with tree houses is Bayram’s Tree Houses in Olympos, Turkey Cave hotels Desert Cave Hotel in Coober Pedy, South Australia and the Pedro Antonio de Alarcón Caves (named after the author) in Guadix, Spain, as well as several hotels in Cappadocia. Turkey stands out for being built in natural cave formations, some with underground rooms.
Capsule Hotels Capsule hotels are a type of budget hotel that is quite common in Japan. Ice hotels, like the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, melt every spring and rebuild with ice and snow every winter. Snow Hotels Finland’s Mammut Snow Hotel is located within the walls of Kemi’s Snow Castle, which is the largest in the world. Includes The Mammut Snow Hotel, The Castle Courtyard, The Snow Restaurant and a wedding chapel, etc. Its furniture and decorations, such as sculptures, are made of snow and ice. There is also accommodation in the snow at Lainio Snow Hotel in Lapland (near Ylläs), Finland. Garden Hotels Garden hotels, famous for their gardens before becoming hotels, include Gravetye Manor, the home of William Robinson and Cliveden, designed by Charles Barry with a rose garden by Geoffrey Jellicoe.
Underwater hotels Since 2005, the only hotel with an underwater room that can be accessed without diving is Utter Inn on Lake Mälaren, Sweden. It only has one room, though, and the Jules’ Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, Florida, which requires scuba diving, isn’t much bigger. Hydropolis is an ambitious project to build a luxury hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with 220 suites, all at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, 20 meters (66 feet) below the surface. Its architecture will feature two surface-breaking domes and an underwater train tunnel, all made of transparent materials like glass and acrylic. Other unusual hotels The Library Hotel in New York City is unique in that its ten floors are arranged according to the Dewey decimal system. The Rogers Center, formerly SkyDome, in Toronto, Canada, is the only stadium that has a hotel connected to it, with 70 rooms overlooking the field. The Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, built on an artificial island, is structured in the shape of a ship’s sail.