Hotels provide accommodation, usually in private rooms, ranging from simple beds in a small room, to luxury suites with round-the-clock staff, priced accordingly.
Hotels have some level of service for guests; at least a lobby desk. In addition to accommodation, some hotels act as venues for conferences and private events (e.g. wedding reception, company anniversaries) even if the guests or invitees have no plans of sleeping there.
In most cases, hotel rooms are booked, or reserved, in advance, so that a room will be held by the hotel awaiting the arrival of a specific guest. Rooms at hotels can also be rented by simply walking in and enquiring at the front desk, but this may be met with a decline as the hotel may be fully booked for the night.
Rooms can be booked directly with the hotels, or via intermediaries such as travel websites (aggregators) and travel agents. Airlines, railways, ferry operators and other travel-related services providers often act as intermediaries as well, providing their passengers and clients the option to book a hotel room in addition to their regular services.
See also: Sleep#Finding bargains
If you stay at a hotel of decent rating, the bill will usually be a significant share of your travel budget. In general, room rates reflect the wealth of the hotel's location. Hotel rooms in low-income countries and less affluent neighbourhoods might be cheaper than a similarly-rated hotel in a cosmopolitan business district.
The price paid for staying at the hotel is generally determined by the room rate, i.e. the rate paid for staying each night spent in the room. The base room rate usually does not include anything but accommodation. Other services, as well as meals, usually incur extra charges. Use of some of the room's and hotel's facilities might also not be free for staying guests. It is good to make sure what is included in the rate and what may cost extra before booking, or at least before using specific services.
Hotels usually have a standard rate quoted at the front desk and displayed prominently in the hotel and in the rooms, which is often called the rack rate. The rack rate is usually the highest rate the hotel would charge for the room, as it is often required by legal restrictions. There are usually many rates one can pay for a given night that are lower than the rack rate, and the value of the rate depends on a number of factors. Knowing how hotels set their offered rates can help you book your desired room cheaper.
Some of the factors that can influence the value of the rate:
On arriving at the hotel, guests should check in, which means giving the front desk the details of the guests staying in a given room, referring to the booking, confirming rates and conditions, being assigned a room and receiving the key to the room. Checking out is done once a guest's stay is completed. The front desk staff presents the charges incurred and guests settle the bill. The key to the room is returned to the front desk at that time.
Hotels usually have fixed check-in and check-out times, given as the earliest hour one can check in at and the latest at which one can check out. Those are usually not the same time – hotels leave a few hours between check-in and check-out times to allow for housekeeping to clean and prepare any rooms that might be vacated at the last possible moment (thus, a day's stay at a hotel is usually shorter than 24 hours even if using all available time). Otherwise, check-in and check-out times are limited by the availability of front desk staff – not all hotels have front desks working 24 hours a day. In small hotels the front desk may not be regularly staffed, and there may be a bell to ring to summon attention or a sign directing you to the bar.
If you expect to arrive late in the evening (maybe after 8 PM), it may be advisable to let the hotel know your expected arrival time to reassure them you are coming and find out whether you have to make any special arrangements upon arrival. If the hotel has not taken any payment for your reservation, they may ask for you to guarantee your stay with a credit card, due to a late check-in; otherwise, they may be tempted to resell the room if you don't arrive by early evening.
The latest check-out time varies between hotels, but is generally sometime around noon, while check-in is usually possible at times from 2 PM onwards. Earlier check-ins and later check-outs at hotels are usually treated as extra services incurring extra charges. They can sometimes be offered free of charge as perks to some guests and included in some rates or special packages. That said, sometimes hotels will let guests check in early or check out late on inquiry at the front desk with no additional conditions and charges if rooms are available.
Please note that failure to check out at appropriate check-out times on the day your stay ends will often be understood as occupying the room for yet another night and therefore incur a full regular nightly rate. Late check-outs should be agreed upon with the front desk staff beforehand.
Most hotels offer a room where you can keep your luggage between check-out and your departure from the city. Do not leave valuables there, as somebody could take the wrong suitcase.
In some hotels, the check-in and check-out can be performed via automated kiosks in the hotel's lobby. This may be provided as a measure of economy (instead of employing staff hotels focusing on low costs offer automated services) or convenience (automated check-in and check-out may be quicker and more comfortable for some travellers in some situations). Furthermore, the adoption of smartphone apps to aid with self-service check-in and digital keys to the room are emerging.
Within a single hotel property, many different rooms may be available. Even in properties with uniform rooms, it is good to make sure what type of room is available to book one precisely fitting one's needs. Rooms may vary according to number and types of beds, size, facilities and amenities as well as décor and design.
Most modern hotel rooms will include private bathrooms (meaning they can only be accessed from the rooms and are intended to be used by the guests staying in the rooms only), which will be fitted with a sink, toilet and shower or bathtub (or both). This type of arrangement, called ensuite, has become commonplace in properties across all standards, although some hotels even in developed countries continue to offer rooms with shared bathrooms. Such bathrooms are usually located in common hallways and are intended for use by all occupants of the rooms in a given floor. Often a hotel room that is not ensuite will still include a sink with running water or even also a toilet. Although not common, a few hotels in older buildings have some rooms with private bathrooms that are not ensuite; instead, your key will give only you access to a bathroom down the corridor.
Some hotels also offer bathrooms especially fitted to cater for the needs of guests with disabilities. This includes special handlebars and supports, a folded seat in a shower stall and other fitments to enable comfortable use by a person with limited mobility, e.g. the elderly or infirm or those using a wheelchair. Guests requiring such facilities should make sure a property provides them and communicate this need at the time of booking.
The following terms are based on the North American standard for mattress sizes, which have been adopted by the hospitality industry worldwide due to the dominance of American hotel chains:
Specific dimensions of beds and mattresses can vary between countries (up to 20 cm, which is quite significant); in addition, the terminology used to denote them can be either wildly different or confusingly similar. The lengths (from head to toe) are usually 74 to 80 inches (188 to 203 cm) but it can also vary between countries as well.
Some hotels also have connecting rooms, which are separate units that can be connected with a door between them. Those can be useful for groups or families wanting to stay together with access to each other's room, but not sharing one. When not in use as such, they are often rented out as regular rooms with the connecting doors locked. A downside of staying in a connecting room is that noises from the other connecting room are sometimes more audible.
Suites are sets of separate chambers rented by a hotel as a common accommodation unit. A suite would usually include one or more bedrooms and some other rooms, such as a living room or sitting room, sometimes with a sofa that converts into a bed. Dining, office and kitchen facilities are also added in many suites. Suites generally offer more space and furniture than a standard hotel room.
A suite is usually provided as either a luxurious type of accommodation: one that enables more people (e.g. a family) to stay in a single unit, or one that provides for a more convenient extended stay. Often, these are marketed to businesspeople and convention delegates with the second room serving as a small office or meeting space.
In hotel buildings comprising several stories, rooms on upper floors are often deemed more attractive as they provide a better view, more privacy (less chance of anybody being able to glimpse into the room through the window from outside) and are farther away from any ground level noises. This especially applies to hotels in metropolitan areas, located at busy areas with heavy traffic, often in tall towers surrounded by other buildings. A reverse pattern applies to two-story motels, where ground-floor tenants may park at the room and unload baggage directly instead of dragging luggage up a flight of stairs.
It is also possible that some rooms in a hotel have better or worse views than others; one side of an oceanfront lodge may face a beach while the other rooms face a road or highway. A landmark, skyline, landscape or striking vista may be visible from only part of the hotel; some rooms may also have less access to daylight, facing an internal courtyard or a wall of another building.
Rooms deemed better with regard to views or lighting may be offered at increased rates and require a specific booking.
Some upscale hotels offer special executive or club rooms or suites with additional amenities. Often (but not always) the room price on premium executive floors includes access to an executive or club lounge. The lounges include comfortable seating space and leisure amenities such as international TV, press and concierge service. It is common for a lounge to provide snacks and beverages at certain times or even throughout the day. Sometimes breakfast for guests on these floors is served at the lounge, while other guests have breakfast elsewhere in the hotel.
Lounges are often placed on higher floors of hotel buildings to provide better views. For convenience, the premium rooms are often put on a separate floor or floors (named executive floors or similarly) with direct unrestricted access to the lounge; access to those floors is restricted to guests staying in those rooms. Naming of such facilities, availability, amenities and mode of operation vary.
See also: Tobacco
Hotels usually designate rooms as "smoking" and "non-smoking" (referring to tobacco/cigarette/cigar smoking) to enable non-smoking guests to enjoy rooms not tainted with the particular odours and other side effects of smoking. If either the absence of smoking residuals or the ability to smoke in the room is important to you, it is best to make sure your room is smoking or non-smoking while booking. If you believe you might have been assigned the incorrect type of room, contact the front desk of your hotel and ask to be moved to an appropriate category.
Many modern hotels, however, do not condone smoking at all within the hotel property, not only because of higher demand for strictly non-smoking rooms, but also because of modern smoke detectors that can be activated by somebody smoking. Thus, smoking in your room is not advisable unless you expressly confirm with hotel staff that this is possible and will not trigger a smoke alarm. Laws in many countries also strictly forbid smoking anywhere within the hotel building anyway.
Hotels may additionally offer meal service included in the price. Common terms include:
There are various types of hotel to suit different travellers' needs or budget, or different companies' priorities. Star ratings may help; sometimes they are governed by tourism officials or a hotel association, so they are somewhat objective. In other cases they are pretty much arbitrary and meaningless.
That said, some concepts and formats have been quite uniformly adopted by the industry and can be found almost anywhere in the globe in the same form. Some of the popular and peculiar types of hotels are discussed below.
A "full-service hotel" is an American term referring to a hotel providing extensive service to guests and generally being staffed around the clock. Many of the services provided incur extra charges over the room rate, but it is their availability that is referred to as "full-service". A full-service hotel will usually include a front desk and room service available 24 hours a day, an on-site restaurant with upscale cuisine and service, and some leisure facilities dependent on country and area standards (most often a fitness room and a swimming pool). Full-service hotels are usually relatively expensive, and their basic room rates rarely include anything but accommodation itself, with every additional service incurring comparably steep charges. On the other hand, rooms in full-service hotels will usually feature many amenities not found in rooms in cheaper hotels. A business hotel is a loosely defined term; it tends to be a full-service (typically 4-star) hotel at a business district, an airport, a convention center or some other place likely to attract business travel.
Full-service hotels will usually be rated as four- or five-star, or have a comparably high local rating. This category includes a broad range of facilities, from business-oriented international chain hotels to ultra-luxury boutique hotels. Some of the most popular international brands of full-service hotels include:
Hotels referred to as "limited-service" or "select-service" will feature only some of the services and facilities provided by full-service hotels. These American terms are not formally defined and used quite liberally, covering a broad range of facilities. In general, as the names suggest, these hotels will not offer some of the services and facilities full-service hotels provide (for example limited or no room service, or even no restaurant on premises), and the rooms in such hotels are simpler and have fewer amenities.
Popular limited or select service hotel brands include:
Properties referred to as budget or economy hotels are geared towards providing accommodation at the lowest possible price. This is achieved by limiting the facilities and services available to guests and making hotel rooms smaller and simpler to fit more of them into a property at a lower cost. Many new economy hotels are purpose-built properties optimized with regard to investment and operating costs. There are also older hotels which position themselves as economy hotels as their standards have fallen behind traveller expectations as the property aged.
Some popular brands of economy hotels include:
As the construction of new motels has largely ended, former motel brands like Motel 6 and Super 8 are migrating to the economy, limited service hotel sector.
Further information: Motels Motel, motor hotels, motor inns or motor lodges are an inexpensive form of limited-service hotel which allow motorists direct access to their rooms from a car park. Most were built before economy, limited-service hotel chains became commonplace in the early 1980s. Simple single-story or two-story buildings with few shared amenities and no room service, these occasionally have an on-site restaurant or an outdoor pool. Rooms are typically at a 1 or 2-star level and are self-contained with a private lavatory, washbasin and shower/bath "en suite". A few "efficiency" units include a small kitchen in-room at extra cost.
In Portugal, Spain, Italy and much of South and Central America, the term refers to an establishment which caters primarily to adultery. In German-speaking countries, the roadhouse motel (rasthaus) is an ordinary economy, limited-service hotel.
In its original meaning, an inn was an establishment providing lodging, food and drink to clients travelling by road. Before the widespread deployment of passenger rail, coaching inns served as periodic rest stops (often in a string of small villages built at 10-12 mile intervals) which accommodated for limitations imposed by horse-drawn travel.
In the motorcar era, marketers have diluted the meaning of terms such as "inn" and "lodge". Any establishment which offers any of the functions of the original stagecoach inns, from a motel with no dining room, to a pub or tavern with no lodging, to a full-service hotel with a restaurant and bar is likely to proclaim itself an "inn".
Airport hotels are in suburban locations suited mostly towards guests arriving or departing from the airport, transit passengers with a significant layover between connecting flights and airline crews. Airport hotels may be connected to an airport terminal or located off-site with shuttle service between the hotel and the airport.
While airport hotels vary in standard of quality, many are part of international hotel chains. These often offer lower rates than a central downtown property of similar standard in a given chain due to their location. Airport hotel strips are constructed in suburbs, often with limited and complicated access to anything but the airport itself, and are prone to aircraft noise (although most newly built airport hotels are sufficiently soundproofed). Airport hotels rarely provide especially desirable room views; serving a utilitarian function, they rarely enjoy the same level of investment in design and facilities as their city centre or resort counterparts. Hotel designers are also restricted in the height of buildings constructed in close proximity to runways and flight paths. Still, airport hotels can be considered for conferences and other events within the airport area.
Transit hotels, a specialised form of airport hotel, are located inside the terminal in airside positions where travellers may enter from arriving international flights without passing through the host country's immigration controls. A transit hotel is intended as short-stay accommodation (sometimes as little as five or six hours) for air travellers who are in transit and plan to board another international flight out without leaving the host airport.
Due to their short-stay market, amenities are variable but often limited. Most or all provide the basics — a bed, desk, toilet, shower and Internet access. A few may be tiny capsule hotels; others offer premium facilities like gyms and spas.
Those hotels are designed to cater for the needs of travellers staying over an extended period of time, anything from four nights to weeks or even months. As such, they straddle the divide between hotels and apartments for rent. The differences are generally that an aparthotel or extended-stay property:
The differences between an extended-stay and regular hotel property usually include:
Such hotels are generally geared towards two groups of travellers. One includes business travellers who are away on business for extended periods of time but do not completely relocate from their permanent residence. Those properties are frequently found within or around cities that are business centres, and are often located next to central business districts, business parks or places a business traveller might want to be close to, as well as being well-connected to transportation infrastructure (road/highway network, airports, railway stations). The other is geared toward leisure travellers wanting to spend a vacation in one place and cater for themselves partially or totally. They are most often found in leisure destinations and may contain fewer business-oriented facilities, while being more oriented towards the needs of travelling families.
Examples of extended-stay hotel chains and brands are:
A "boutique hotel" originally signified a unique property, often a small upscale independent, which was not designed to fit a predetermined format or modern hotel chain's branding. The qualities associated with the category were a certain degree of luxury as well as small size; the "boutique" property was a specialised operator which served a relatively small number of voyagers but served them well.
As this term became popular, with generally positive connotations which can enhance the status of a varying array of properties, it has been applied liberally by the hospitality industry. While "boutique" originally inferred a luxury property in a small size, a traveller may find a hotel lacks either to some extent or completely. The status as an independent alternative to chain hotels is also being diluted both by existing property operators joining an association or chain, and by hotel operating companies acquiring or creating boutique hotels themselves.
Brands created by large hospitality companies specifically to extend their portfolios into boutique hotels include:
Unlike established upscale chain brands which share some boutique hotel-like characteristics, the boutique-specific brands usually do not take precedence over the original name of the property. The chain name is featured in some communications, but in a secondary order.
In many cities, there is one famous old hotel, usually going back to the Victorian era, that was historically the place to stay. Often, these hotels served cross-country rail travellers in an era long before the "jet set" and reliable commercial aviation. Some became landmarks in their own right.
Of course, the newer luxury hotels may have better facilities, but the old place has cachet.
See also: Albergo Diffuso
The idea of scattered hotels got its start in the early 1980s in Italy. The goal was to revive tourism in an earthquake-damaged corner of northeastern Italy in the 1970s. A "Diffuso hotel" consist of different accommodations in different buildings scattered throughout the village. For those who do not love staying at a hotel, an Albergo Diffuso is a balance between a hotel and a house.
A capsule hotel is a type of hotel developed in Japan that provides guest accommodation in modular plastic or fiberglass blocks (called "capsules") of roughly 2 m (6 ft 7 in) by 1 m (3 ft 3 in) by 1.25 m (4 ft 1 in). A capsule is basically only suitable for laying or sleeping in it, although some also include a television, an electronic console, and wireless internet connection for guests to relax or entertain themselves before going to sleep.
Capsule hotels consist of multiple capsule units places side by side and stacked upon each other to maximize space utilization. Communal facilities are usually very limited and include shared washrooms and luggage lockers (as there is basically no room for luggage in a capsule), but sometimes also restaurants or vending machines. Capsule hotels are intended to provide cheap and basic overnight accommodation for guests not requiring the services offered by more conventional hotels. They are rarely found outside of Japan, though a few hostels in other countries have adopted similar pod-style bunks.
See also: Resorts
A resort hotel is a site with accommodation, dining, shopping and recreation, separate from the local community, in some cases in a gated community. A resort can be integrated with a main attraction, such as a ski lift system, golf course, casinos or a theme park.
While resort hotels give fewer opportunities to explore the land, they are useful for conferences and family getaways, and decrease the crime risk. In some places, such as Cancun, Phoenix, Las Vegas, etc; resorts are the destination in themselves where guests spend their entire vacation/holiday without leaving to explore the land or to visit nearby attractions outside the resort grounds.
Hotels usually provide a range of services that distinguish them from other accommodation options. The array of services rendered usually plays a crucial role in determining the hotel's star rating, and also influences the prices, while being itself influenced by the group of travellers the hotel intends to cater for.
The hotel services may include:
Hotels may also charge a mandatory fee in addition to the standard room and board charge to provide access to additional facilities. This is typically called a Resort Fee and can include access to things such as exercise facilities, pools, and high-speed internet access.
In some hotels (particularly downtown in medium/large cities) additional fees apply for parking. Airport hotels will sometimes provide shuttlebus services from the hotel to the air terminal at regular intervals.
Main article: Rating systems
In many countries of the world hotels feature a rating, reflecting their supposed standard. This rating is most frequently expressed in stars, with one star meaning the lowest standard, and five stars meaning the highest standard. In some countries, other systems are employed, such as letters or particular names. See our article on rating systems for details.
In some countries the hotel rating is unregulated, with any hotel giving themselves stars according to their perceived target audience, using criteria they see fit. In other countries the rating is done by a state authority or industry organization, being reasonably reliable. However, to allow objective rating, the stars are usually given based on "hard" criteria, such as whether the hotel has a given facility or service available; the ratings will tell whether the hotel has a swimming pool or room service, but not whether the rooms are comfortable, service swift or the personnel friendly. Independent organisations may be more willing to use subjective criteria, with the issue of whether they are truly independent of the hotels.
There may be more than one classification in use, e.g. when an external organization, such as an automobile club, uses their own rating. A hotel may choose to publish ratings according to the most favourable system, in the extreme case simply giving themselves a star rating at will, e.g. some hotels in Dubai refer to themselves as six- or seven-stars. There are also some global ratings, e.g. some hotel organizations like Leading Hotels of the World perform inspections at member and aspiring member properties against their own standards. Finally, package tour companies often give properties their own star or star-like ratings (e.g. by awarding them one to five "suns") in their catalogues.
A "hotel chain" is usually meant to represent a collection of hotels under the same brand, management or ownership. Similar expressions exist in other languages (e.g. "Hotelkette" in Germany, which is a direct analogue), while in some languages the reference to network is used. A hotel chain would usually use a specific brand which becomes a part of the name of every hotel in the chain, and has all the hotels follow a number of standards. Do note, however, that the amount of uniformity and standardization within hotel chains can vary, and a hotel chain may include very different properties of different standards under a common brand.
While not obvious to travellers it is worth noting that the hotel's brand does not imply its management or ownership. A hotel may be owned by a separate entity and operated by another, unrelated directly to the company providing the brand name by means of franchise agreement. Often hotel chains contain a mix of properties owned and operated by the "mother company", only managed by it and ones that are completely franchised out. For example, most Hilton hotels around the world are not owned, or even operated, by Hilton Worldwide.
Therefore, three types of businesses evolved in conjunction with operating hotels:
Sometimes a large hospitality company would have separate entities performing each of those roles, which may or may not cooperate on specific properties depending on circumstances and needs. Travellers are almost always only presented with the name of the hotel chain operator and/or the specific brand and it may not be obvious who actually operates and owns the hotel. This may or may not be relevant, as in some chains owned and operated properties might be held to different standards from franchised properties.
Many hotel chain operators choose to operate multiple hotel chains and brands to cater to a wider range of travellers by including properties in multiple price ranges; for instance, a property which does not meet the standards to be a Days Inn can be marketed by the same chain as a Knights Inn. A chain normally associated with full-service hotels can launch an "express" or "econo" marque under different branding to enter the economy limited service price range, where a hotel only has the most basic motel-like amenities, without undermining its core brand. This form of market segmentation often also serves as a means for franchisors to circumvent restrictions where a franchisee is contractually guaranteed a minimum distance between hotels or motels of the same franchised brand.
Hotel Loyalty Programs are loyalty programmes operated by hotel chains, that are in many ways similar to frequent flyer programmes. The purpose of Hotel loyalty programs is to ensure that a hotel company retains its clients as frequent guests by offering benefits for staying as a guest or booking conference rooms and facilities at their hotels. The basic idea is every eligible hotel night or every dollar you spend at hotel brands participating in the corporate hotel loyalty program earns points, which can be exchanged for rewards like hotel rooms, room upgrades and airline miles. Hotel co-branded credit cards are a common strategy for earning hotel loyalty points and benefits when not staying at hotels.
An additional incentive for a hotel frequent guest is premium membership. Each corporate hotel loyalty program has its own criteria for elite membership. Hotel loyalty program elite membership is generally earned by a frequent guest when certain thresholds are met for the number of hotel stays, hotel nights, or money spent. A hotel stay is defined as consecutive nights at the same hotel under the same name, regardless of the number of different reservations.
Elite membership in a hotel loyalty program is generally based on activity within a calendar year. Sleep at the loyalty program member hotels for sufficient nights or stays, or spend enough money and you'll get a silver/gold/platinum/diamond hotel program membership card entitling you to various perks, such as hotel points bonuses, lounge access, free upgrades, guaranteed rooms, etc. High level elite membership in the major hotel chain loyalty programs, generally with the benefit of complimentary room upgrades, takes between 25 and 75 hotel nights in a 12-month period.
Some hotel chains, particularly in the luxury segment, operate programs that do not award points, but offer frequent guest recognition with added value benefits such as complimentary room upgrades, restaurant and spa discounts, and additional amenities in recognition of the loyal guest.
International hotel chains are a popular choice with business travellers, as they generally offer standardized predictability. The downside for leisure travel is that they are rarely very exciting or exotic, and there can still be considerable variation within the brand.
The following lists major international hotel chains only, i.e. those with significant presence (~500 hotels or more) on all or almost all inhabited continents. Local chains can be found in individual country articles.
Related: Finding accommodation
Related: Grand old hotels