Hotel Yesterday,Tonight and tomorrow

Hotel Yesterday,Tonight and tomorrow

A hotel is an establishment that provides lodging paid 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in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms and air conditioning or climate control.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 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.

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. Grammatically, hotels usually take the definite article – hence “The Astoria Hotel” or simply “The Astoria.”

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;

• Conference and resort hotels often contain full-sized luxury facilities with full service accommodations and amenities.
  • Examples may include: Conrad Hotels, InterContinental Hotels, Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Dorchester Collection, JW Marriott Hotels, Starwood – Westin Hotels, Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt
• Historic Inns and boutique hotels often contain luxury facilities of varying size in unique or intimate settings with full service accommodations.
• Select Service
  • Examples may include: Holiday Inn, Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn
• Limited Service
  • Examples may include: Hampton Inn, aloft, Holiday Inn Express, Fairfield Inn, Four Points by Sheraton, and Days Inn
• Extended Stay
  • Examples may include: Staybridge Suites, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Residence Inn by Marriott, element, and Extended Stay Hotels
• Timeshare
  • Examples may include: Hilton Grand Vacations, Marriott Vacation Club International, Westgate Resorts, Starwood Vacation Ownership, and Disney Vacation Club
• Destination Club
• Botels – floating hotels.

 

Management

Hotel management is a globally accepted career field and academic field of study. Degree programs such as hospitality management studies, a business degree, and/or certification programs formally prepare hotel managers for industry practice.

Most hotel establishments consist of a General Manager who serves as the head executive (often referred to as the “Hotel Manager”), department heads who oversee various departments within the hotel, middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. The organizational chart and quantity of job positions varies by hotel size, function, and is often determined by hotel ownership.

Speciality hotels

Historic Inns and boutique hotels

Boutique hotels are typically hotels with a unique environment or intimate setting. 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.

A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, such as the Ritz Hotel in London, 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).

Resort hotels

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 destinations, the defining characteristic of a resort hotel is that it exists purely to serve another attraction, the two having the same owners.

On the Las Vegas Strip there is a tradition of one-upmanship with luxurious and extravagant hotels in a concentrated area. 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.

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.

Hotel Yesterday,Tonight and tomorrow