A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms and air conditioning or climate control. Additional common features found in hotel rooms are a telephone, an alarm clock, a television, a safe, a mini-bar with snack foods and drinks, and facilities for making tea and coffee. Luxury features include bathrobes and slippers, a pillow menu, twin-sink vanities, and jacuzzi bathtubs. Larger hotels may provide additional guest facilities such as a restaurant, swimming pool, fitness center, business center, childcare, conference facilities and social function services.
Hotel rooms are usually numbered (or named in some smaller hotels and B&Bs) to allow guests to identify their room.
Some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In the United Kingdom, a hotel is required by law to serve food and drinks to all guests within certain stated hours. In Japan, capsule hotels provide a minimized amount of room space and shared facilities.
Contents
Etymology
Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal, Budapest, Hungary
Hotel rooms are usually numbered (or named in some smaller hotels and B&Bs) to allow guests to identify their room.
Some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In the United Kingdom, a hotel is required by law to serve food and drinks to all guests within certain stated hours. In Japan, capsule hotels provide a minimized amount of room space and shared facilities.
Contents
Etymology
Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal, Budapest, Hungary
The word hotel is derived from the French hôtel (coming from hôte meaning host), which referred to a French version of a townhouse or any other building seeing frequent visitors, rather than a place offering accommodation. In contemporary French usage, hôtel now has the same meaning as the English term, and hôtel particulier is used for the old meaning. The French spelling, with the circumflex, was also used in English, but is now rare. The circumflex replaces the 's' found in the earlier hostel spelling, which over time took on a new, but closely related meaning. Grammatically, hotels usually take the definite article - hence "The Astoria Hotel" or simply "The Astoria."
[edit] Types
Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies that operate hotels have set widely accepted industry standards to classify hotel types. General categories include the following;
* Upscale Luxury
o Examples include Conrad Hotels, Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, and JW Marriott Hotels
* Full Service
o Examples include Hilton, Marriott, Doubletree, and Hyatt
* Select Service
o Examples include Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn
* Limited Service
o Examples include Hampton Inn, Fairfield Inn, Days Inn, and La Quinta Inns & Suites
* Extended Stay
o Examples include Homewood Suites by Hilton, Residence Inn by Marriott, and Extended Stay Hotels
* Timeshare
o Examples include Marriott Vacation Club International, Westgate Resorts, and Disney Vacation Club
* Destination Club
[edit] Management
Main article: Hotel management
The management of a hotel operation is considered a major business operation. Larger hotels may operate similar to a large company with an extensive management structure consisting of a General Manager which serves as the head executive, department heads that oversee various departments, middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. Degree programs such as hospitality management studies, a business degree, and/or certification programs prepare hotel managers for industry practice.
[edit] Historic hotels
Hotel Astoria and a statue of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia in front, in Saint Petersburg, Russia
Some hotels have gained their renown through tradition, by hosting significant events or persons, such as Schloss Cecilienhof in Potsdam, Germany, which derives its fame from the Potsdam Conference of the World War II allies Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin in 1945. The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in Mumbai is one of India's most famous and historic hotels because of its association with the Indian independence movement. Some establishments have given name to a particular meal or beverage, as is the case with the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, United States where the Waldorf Salad was first created or the Hotel Sacher in Vienna, Austria, home of the Sachertorte. Others have achieved fame by association with dishes or cocktails created on their premises, such as the Hotel de Paris where the crêpe Suzette was invented or the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, where the Singapore Sling cocktail was devised.
Hôtel Ritz in Paris, France
A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, such as the Ritz Hotel in London, United Kingdom, through its association with Irving Berlin's song, 'Puttin' on the Ritz'. The Algonquin Hotel in New York City is famed as the meeting place of the literary group, the Algonquin Round Table, and Hotel Chelsea, also in New York City, has been the subject of a number of songs and the scene of the stabbing of Nancy Spungen (allegedly by her boyfriend Sid Vicious). The Waldorf Astoria and Statler hotels in New York City are also immortalized in the names of Muppets Statler and Waldorf.[citation needed]
[edit] Unusual hotels
Chicago's Magnificent Mile has hosted many skyscraper hotels such as the Allerton Hotel
Many hotels can be considered destinations in themselves, by dint of unusual features of the lodging or its immediate environment:
[edit] Treehouse hotels
Some hotels are built with living trees as structural elements, for example the Costa Rica Tree House in the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica; the Treetops Hotel in Aberdare National Park, Kenya; the Ariau Towers near Manaus, Brazil, on the Rio Negro in the Amazon; and Bayram's Tree Houses in Olympos, Turkey.
[edit] Straw bale hotels
In the little village of Nax Mont-Noble, on 1300 metres in the Swiss Alps, construction works for the Maya Guesthouse will start in 2011. It will be the first hotel built entirely with straw bales. It will need no heating due to the isolation values of the walls.[1]
[edit] Bunker hotels
The Null Stern Hotel in Teufen, Appenzellerland, Switzerland and the Concrete Mushrooms in Albania[2] are former nuclear bunkers transformed into hotels.
[edit] Shoe hotels
Shoe hotels are hotels built into a giant shoe. The idea was inspired by the "Old Woman who lived in a shoe" myth. The largest such hotel is currently in Hokkaido, Japan. The most popular shoe hotels are modelled after a woman's platform dancing shoe.[citation needed]
[edit] Cave hotels
The Cuevas Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (named after the author) in Guadix, Spain, as well as several hotels in Cappadocia, Turkey, are notable for being built into natural cave formations, some with rooms underground. The Desert Cave Hotel in Coober Pedy, South Australia is built into the remains of an opal mine.
[edit] Capsule hotels
Capsule hotels are a type of economical hotel that are found in Japan, where people sleep in stacks of rectangular containers.
[edit] Ice and snow hotels
Main article: Ice hotel
The Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, and the Hotel de Glace in Duschenay, Canada, melt every spring and are rebuilt each winter; the Mammut Snow Hotel in Finland is located within the walls of the Kemi snow castle; and the Lainio Snow Hotel is part of a snow village near Ylläs, Finland.
[edit] Garden hotels
Garden hotels, famous for their gardens before they became hotels, include Gravetye Manor, the home of garden designer William Robinson, and Cliveden, designed by Charles Barry with a rose garden by Geoffrey Jellicoe.
[edit] Underwater hotels
Some hotels have accommodation underwater, such as Utter Inn in Lake Mälaren, Sweden. Hydropolis, project cancelled 2004 in Dubai, would have had suites on the bottom of the Persian Gulf, and Jules Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, Florida requires scuba diving to access its rooms.
[edit] Other unusual hotels
RMS Queen Mary, Long Beach, California, United States
* The Library Hotel in New York City, is unique in that each of its ten floors is assigned one category from the Dewey Decimal System.
* The Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, built on an artificial island, is structured in the shape of a boat's sail.
* The Jailhotel Löwengraben in Lucerne, Switzerland is a converted prison now used as a hotel.
* The Luxor, a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States due to its pyramidal structure.
* The Liberty Hotel in Boston, used to be the Charles Street Jail.
* Built in Scotland and completed in 1936, The former ocean liner RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, United States uses its first-class staterooms as a hotel, after retiring in 1967 from Transatlantic service.
* There are several hotels throughout the world built into converted airliners.
[edit] Resort hotels
Principe di Piemonte, Viareggio (Italy)
Some hotels are built specifically to create a captive trade, example at casinos and holiday resorts. Though of course hotels have always been built in popular desinations, the defining characteristic of a resort hotel is that it exists purely to serve another attraction, the two having the same owners.
In Las Vegas there is a tradition of one-upmanship with luxurious and extravagant hotels in a concentrated area known as the Las Vegas Strip. This trend now has extended to other resorts worldwide, but the concentration in Las Vegas is still the world's highest: nineteen of the world's twenty-five largest hotels by room count are on the Strip, with a total of over 67,000 rooms.[3]
In Europe Center Parcs might be considered a chain of resort hotels, since the sites are largely man-made (though set in natural surroundings such as country parks) with captive trade, whereas holiday camps such as Butlins and Pontin's are probably not considered as resort hotels, since they are set at traditional holiday destinations which existed before the camps.
[edit] Railway hotels
Frequently, expanding railway companies built grand hotels at their termini, such as the Midland Hotel, Manchester next to the former Manchester Central Station and in London the ones above St Pancras railway station and Charing Cross railway station also in London is the Chiltern Court Hotel above Baker Street tube station and Canada's grand railway hotels. They are or were mostly, but not exclusively, used by those travelling by rail.
[edit] Motels
Main article: Motel
A motel (motor hotel) is a hotel which is for a short stay, usually for a night, for motorists on long journeys. It has direct access from the room to the vehicle (for example a central parking lot around which the buildings are set), and is built conveniently close to major roads and intersections.
[edit] World record setting hotels
Historical Hotel Savoy in Florence
[edit] Largest
In 2006, Guinness World Records listed the First World Hotel in Genting Highlands, Malaysia as the world's largest hotel with a total of 6,118 rooms.[4] Similarly, the Venetian Palazzo Complex, in Las Vegas, has the most number of rooms. It has 7,117 rooms followed by MGM Grand Hotel, which contains 6,852 rooms.
see also List of largest hotels in the world
[edit] Oldest
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest hotel still in operation is the Hoshi Ryokan, in the Awazu Onsen area of Komatsu, Japan which opened in 718.[5]
[edit] Tallest
The Rose Tower in United Arab Emirates is the tallest building used exclusively as a hotel.[6] Originally, the tower was to be 380 m (1,250 ft) high, but design modification reduced it to 333 m (1,093 ft).
[edit] Hotel rooms as an investment
Some hotels sell individual rooms to investors. Timeshare is an example of this kind of investment. The buyer is allowed to stay in the room without charge or at a reduced rate for a given number of days each year. The investor is paid a share of the takings for the room. Rooms can be sold on a leasehold basis, sometimes on a 999 year lease. Room owners are free to sell at any time.[7]
[edit] Living in hotels
A number of public figures have notably chosen to take up semi-permanent or permanent residence in hotels.
* Actor Richard Harris lived at the Savoy Hotel while in London. Hotel archivist Susan Scott recounts an anecdote that when he was being taken out of the building on a stretcher shortly before his death he raised his hand and told the diners "it was the food."[8]
* Inventor Nikola Tesla lived the last 10 years of his life at the New Yorker Hotel until 1943 when he died in the hotel room.
* Millionaire Howard Hughes lived his last few years in a Las Vegas hotel.
* Egyptian actor Ahmad Zaki lived his last 15 years in Ramses Hilton Hotel - Cairo.
* Larry Fine (of the Three Stooges) and his family lived in hotels, due to his extravagant spending habits and his wife's dislike for housekeeping. They first lived in the President Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where his daughter Phyllis was raised, then the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. Not until the late 1940s did Larry buy a home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, California.
* General Douglas McArthur lived his last 14 years in the penthouse of the Waldorf Towers, a part of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
* American actress Elaine Stritch lived in the Savoy Hotel in London for over a decade.[9]
* Fashion designer Coco Chanel lived in the Hotel Ritz Paris on and off for more than 30 years.
* Vladimir Nabokov and his wife Vera lived in the Montreux Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland from 1961 until his death in 1977.
* British entrepreneur Jack Lyons lived in the Hotel Mirador Kempinski in Switzerland for several years until his death in 2008.
[edit] Fictitious hotels
Wiki letter w cropped.svg This section requires expansion.
Hotels have been used as the settings for television programmes such as the British situation comedies Fawlty Towers and I'm Alan Partridge, the British soap opera Crossroads, and in films such as the Bates Motel in Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho and The Dolphin Hotel in 1408, a short story by Stephen King which was adapted into a 2007 film.
Another is Tipton Hotel, a fictitious hotel in Disney's "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody." When the show later became a spinoff into "The Suite Life on Deck," the Tipton evolved into the SS Tipton, run by the same company.
