Everything about Hotel totally explained
A
hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging, usually 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in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including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, and internet connectivity; snack foods and drinks may be supplied in a
mini-bar, and facilities for making hot drinks. Larger hotels may provide a number of additional guest facilities such as a restaurant, a swimming pool or childcare, and have conference and social function services.
Some hotels offer various combinations of 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; to avoid this requirement it isn't uncommon to come across
private hotels which are not subject to this requirement. In Japan,
capsule hotels provide a minimised amount of room space and shared facilities.
In
Australia and
Canada, hotel may also refer to a
pub or
bar. In
India, the word may also refer to a restaurant since the best restaurants were always situated next to a good hotel.
Etymology
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.
Classification
The cost and quality of hotels are usually indicative of the range and type of services available. Due to the enormous increase in tourism worldwide 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 the one to five
stars classification being most common and with higher star ratings indicating more luxury. Hotels are independently assessed in traditional systems and these rely heavily on the facilities provided. Some consider this disadvantageous to smaller hotels whose quality of accommodation could fall into one class but the lack of an item such as an
elevator would prevent it from reaching a higher categorization. In some countries, there's an official body with standard criteria for classifying hotels, but in many others there's none. There have been attempts at unifying the classification system so that it becomes an internationally recognized and reliable standard but large differences exist in the quality of the accommodation and the food within one category of hotel, sometimes even in the same country. The
American Automobile Association (AAA) and their affiliated bodies use diamonds instead of stars to express hotel and restaurant ratings levels.
Motels
A motel is a hotel which is made convenient for people who wish to be able to have quick access from their parked car to a hotel room.
Historic hotels
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 so-called
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. Other establishments have given name to a particular meal or beverage, as is the case with the
Waldorf Astoria in
New York City known for its
Waldorf Salad or the
Raffles Hotel in
Singapore, where the drink
Singapore Sling was invented. Another example is the
Hotel Sacher in
Vienna Austria, home of the
Sachertorte or the
Hotel de Paris where the
crèpe Suzette was invented.
There are also hotels which became much more popular through films like the
Grand Hotel Europe in
Saint Petersburg,
Russia when
James Bond stayed there in the
blockbuster Goldeneye. Cannes hotels such as the
Carlton or the
Martinez become the center of the world during Cannes Film Festival (France).
A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, such as the
Ritz Hotel in
London,
UK ('Putting on The Ritz'), the
Algonquin Hotel in New York City with its famed
Algonquin Round Table and
Hotel Chelsea, also in New York City, subject of a number of songs and also the scene of the stabbing of
Nancy Spungen (allegedly by her boyfriend
Sid Vicious). Hotels that enter folklore like these two are also often frequented by celebrities, as is the case both with the Ritz and the Chelsea.
Unusual hotels
Many hotels can be considered
destinations in themselves, by dint of unusual features of the lodging and/or its immediate environment:
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.
Cave hotels
Desert Cave Hotel in
Coober Pedy, South Australia and 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.
Capsule hotels
Capsule hotels are a type of economical hotel that are quite common in
Japan. Similar hotels are now also found in Europe.
Cube hotels
Cube hotels are trendy hotels with small rooms that are common in
Europe. Similar hotels are now also found in
Malaysia and elsewhere.
Ice and snow hotels
The Ice Hotel in
Jukkasjärvi,
Sweden, melts every spring and is 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.
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.
Underwater hotels
Some hotels have accommodation underwater, such as
Utter Inn in
Lake Mälaren, Sweden.
Hydropolis, under construction in
Dubai, will have suites on the bottom of the
Persian Gulf, and
Jules Undersea Lodge in
Key Largo,
Florida requires
scuba diving to access its rooms.
Other unusual hotels
World record setting hotels
Tallest
The tallest hotel in the world is the
Burj al-Arab in
Dubai at 321 metres, which however will soon be surpassed by the nearby
Rose Rotana Suites at 333 metres (1,091 feet).
Largest
The hotel with the greatest number of rooms is the
MGM Grand Las Vegas in
Las Vegas,
USA, with a total of 6,276 rooms. 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.
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
717.
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".Further Information
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