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 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, a business center with computers, printers, and other office equipment, 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.
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 defunct lodging compound establishment; The Milestone Mo-Tel in 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 sleeping 4–20 people, with shared use of a lounge and usually a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex and have private or shared bathrooms. Private rooms may also be available. Hostels are popular forms of lodging for backpackers, however very few impose age limits, so hostels are an option for travellers of all ages and styles. The benefits of hostels include lower costs and opportunities to meet people from different places, find travel partners, and share travel experiences. Some hostels, such as in India or Hostelling International, cater to a niche market of travelers. Different hostels can be known for offering different experiences. 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, some of which are on par with boutique hotels. Some may cater to older digital nomads, global nomads, and perpetual travelers who prefer slightly more upmarket private rooms or a quieter atmosphere. Hostels may also differentiate themselves by being environmentally friendly ecohostels. In countries where wages are lower, the cost of staying at a hostel may be similar to staying in a budget hotel.
A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sex. The name originates from "Hotel Love" in Osaka. Although love hotels exist all over the world, the term "love hotel" is often used to refer specifically to those located within Japan.
A flophouse or doss-house is a place that has very low-cost lodging, providing space to sleep and minimal amenities.
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.
Room service or in-room dining is a hotel service enabling guests to choose items of food and drink for delivery to their hotel room for consumption. Room service is organized as a subdivision within the food and beverage department of high-end hotel and resort properties. It is uncommon for room service to be offered in hotels that are not high-end, or in motels. Room service may also be provided for guests on cruise ships. Room service may be provided on a 24-hour basis or limited to late night hours only. Due to the cost of customized orders and delivery of room service, prices charged to the patron are typically much higher than in the hotel's restaurant or tuck shop, and a gratuity is expected in some regions.
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, trading as Travelodge, is a private company operating in the hotels and hospitality industry throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain.
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 serves 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.
Booking.com is one of the largest online travel agencies. It is headquartered in Amsterdam, and is a subsidiary of Booking Holdings. Booking.com provides lodging reservation services for approximately 3.4 million properties, including 475,000 hotels, motels, and resorts and 2.9 million homes, apartments in over 220 countries and territories and in over 40 languages. It also sells flights in 55 markets and tours and activities in more than 1,300 cities. Hotel partners have reported not being paid for months at a time, leaving small hoteliers out of pocket.
The Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts brand was the first motel chain in the United States, founded by Edgar Lee Torrance in Waco, Texas, in 1929. By 1955, there were more than twenty Alamo Plazas across the southeastern U.S., most controlled by a loosely knit group of a half-dozen investors and operating using common branding or architecture.
Fairmont Le Montreux Palace is a luxury hotel located on the shores of Lake Geneva at Avenue Claude Nobs 2, in the city of Montreux in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, and managed by Michael Smithuis. Built in 1906, the hotel is a member of the Swiss Deluxe Hotels and Historic Hotels Worldwide. The hotel is part of Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. The Fairmont chain has been part of the AccorHotels group since 2016.
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. The company facilitates the online and telephone booking of daytime booking rooms. The platform collaborates with a network of over 7000 across 25 countries, serving as a intermediary that connects customers with their chosen hotel accommodations.
The Homeless Voice is an American homeless advocacy center that operates out of Florida. It was founded by Sean Cononie and runs a street newspaper by the same name. The center also ran a homeless shelter in Hollywood, Florida that closed in 2015.
Motel One is a German hotel chain headquartered in Munich. It operates properties in eleven European countries as well as one hotel in New York City. Few of the company's hotels use their upscale subsidiary brand The Cloud One instead.
BYHOURS is a Spanish company and hotel microstay platform offering hotel stays by the hour. Guests book the hotel for a specific time of arrival and a duration of 3, 6, or 24 hours.
Karen O’Shannacery is a Canadian homeless advocate. She is the former executive director of the Lookout Emergency Aid Society in Vancouver and co-founder of the BC Shelter Network.