A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a refrigerator and other kitchen facilities, upholstered chairs, a flat screen television, and en-suite bathrooms. Small, lower-priced hotels may offer only the most basic guest services and facilities. Larger, higher-priced hotels may provide additional guest facilities such as a swimming pool, business centre, childcare, conference and event facilities, tennis or basketball courts, gymnasium, restaurants, day spa, and social function services. Hotel rooms are usually numbered to allow guests to identify their room. Some boutique, high-end hotels have custom decorated rooms. Some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In Japan, capsule hotels provide a tiny room suitable only for sleeping and shared bathroom facilities.
Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommodation for horses.
A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, coined as a portmanteau of "motor hotel", originates from the Milestone Mo-Tel of San Luis Obispo, California, which was built in 1925. The term referred to a type of hotel consisting of a single building of connected rooms whose doors faced a parking lot and in some circumstances, a common area or a series of small cabins with common parking. Motels are often individually owned, though motel chains do exist.
A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory, with shared use of a lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex and have private or shared bathrooms. Private rooms may also be available, but the property must offer dormitories to be considered a hostel. Hostels are popular forms of lodging for backpackers, cycle tourists, and gap year travelers. They are part of the sharing economy. Benefits of hostels include lower costs and opportunities to meet people from all over the world, find travel partners, and share travel ideas. Some hostels, such as Zostel in India or Hostelling International, cater to a niche market of travelers. For example, one hostel might feature in-house social gatherings such as movie nights or communal dinners, another might feature local tours, one might be known for its parties, and another might have a quieter place to relax in serenity, or be located on the beach. Newer hostels focus on a more trendy design interior, some of which are on par with boutique hotels. Some may cater to older digital nomads, global nomads, and perpetual travelers that prefer slightly more upmarket private rooms or a quieter atmosphere.
A frequent-flyer program (FFP) is a loyalty program offered by an airline.
A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sexual activities. The name originates from "Hotel Love" in Osaka, which was built in 1968 and had a rotating sign. Although love hotels exist all over the world, the term "love hotel" is often used to refer specifically to those located within Japan.
A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism-related services to the general public on behalf of accommodation or travel suppliers to offer different kinds of travelling packages for each destination. Travel agencies can provide outdoor recreation activities, airlines, car rentals, cruise lines, hotels, railways, travel insurance, package tours, insurance, guide books, VIP airport lounge access, arranging logistics for luggage and medical items delivery for travellers upon request, public transport timetables, car rentals, and bureau de change services. Travel agencies can also serve as general sales agents for airlines that do not have offices in a specific region. A travel agency's main function is to act as an agent, selling travel products and services on behalf of a supplier. They are also called Travel Advisors. They do not keep inventory in-hand unless they have pre-booked hotel rooms or cabins on a cruise ship for a group travel event such as a wedding, honeymoon, or other group event.
A suite in a hotel or other public accommodation denotes, according to most dictionary definitions, connected rooms under one room number. Hotels may refer to suites as a class of accommodations with more space than a typical hotel room, but technically speaking there should be more than one room to constitute a true suite.
Online hotel reservations are a popular method for booking hotel rooms. Travellers can book rooms on a computer by using online security to protect their privacy and financial information and by using several online travel agents to compare prices and facilities at different hotels.
Choice Hotels International, Inc. is an American multinational hospitality company based in Rockville, Maryland. The company, which is one of the largest hotel chains in the world, owns several hotel brands ranging from upscale to economy. As of 2020, Choice Hotels franchises more than 7,100 hotels in more than 40 countries and territories worldwide, representing nearly 600,000 rooms, in addition to 1,035 hotels under construction with more than 85,000 rooms.
Super 8, formerly Super 8 Motels, is an American hotel brand, the world's largest budget hotel chain with over 2,000 locations worldwide. The chain is a subsidiary of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. The original room cost was $8.88 per night. As of September 2021, the brand website listed 2,141 hotels worldwide.
Rodeway Inn is a chain of economy-priced hotels in the United States and Canada. Founded by Michael Robinson in 1962, the franchise is now led by Choice Hotels corporation.
An apartment hotel or aparthotel is a serviced apartment complex that uses a hotel-style booking system. It is similar to renting an apartment, but with no fixed contracts and occupants can "check out" whenever they wish, subject to the applicable minimum length of stay imposed by the company.
Travelodge Hotels Limited is a private company operating in the hotels and hospitality industry throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain. Known simply as Travelodge, it is the UK's largest independent hotel brand with over 570 limited-service hotels across the UK.
A roadhouse or stopping house (Canada) is a small mixed-use premises typically built on or near a major road in a sparsely populated area or an isolated desert region that services the passing travellers, providing food, drinks, accommodation, fuel, and parking spaces to the guests and their vehicles. The premises generally consist of just a single dwelling, permanently occupied by a nuclear family, usually between two and five family members.
Agoda.com or just Agoda is a Singapore online travel agency for hotels, vacation rentals, flights, and airport transfer. It is owned by Agoda Company Pte. Ltd., headquartered in Singapore, and it is currently a subsidiary of Booking Holdings.
A resort fee, also called a facility fee, a destination fee, an amenity fee, an urban fee, or a resort charge, is an additional fee that a guest is charged by an accommodation provider, usually calculated on a per day basis, in addition to a base room rate.
Microstays are residency periods in a hotel room of less than a full night stay, choosing the check-in time and length of the stay in hours. Although such short stays have not been commonly offered by mainstream hotels in the Western hospitality industry, doing so emerged as a trend in the World Travel Market Global Trends Report 2013. Bookings for less than a full night stay became more popular in Europe as a way to increase revenue by offering greater flexibility. By offering microstays, hotels can take advantage of their available inventory and sometimes sell the same room twice in a day.
The Dude Rancher Lodge is a motel in Billings, Montana, on the National Register of Historic Places. Known as "Billings' most unique motel", it was built in 1950 with a Hollywood-western style theme inside and out with many custom features, most original to the building. Owned for over 40 years by the family corporation of its original owners, with a single change of ownership in 1992, the motel and its attached restaurant is still in operation today and looks much as it did when originally constructed.
Dayuse.com is a booking platform for microstays based in Paris, with offices in Hong Kong and New York. Created in 2010, Dayuse.com is a website that offers the booking of daytime hotel rooms online and by telephone. The company lists over 7,000 hotels in 25 countries. The company is not a direct provider of these services, but an intermediary that connects customers with the hotels of their choice.