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, 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.
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.
For other uses, see Hostel (disambiguation). For the Spanish lodging, see Hostal. For student housing, see Dormitory.
A dormitory is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university students. In some countries, it can also refer to a room containing several beds accommodating people.
A boarding house is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "room and board," that is, some meals as well as accommodation.
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 resort is a self-contained commercial establishment that tries to provide most of a vacationer's wants, such as food, drink, swimming, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping, on the premises. The term resort may be used for a hotel property that provides an array of amenities, typically including entertainment and recreational activities. A hotel is frequently a central feature of a resort, such as the Grand Hotel at Mackinac Island, Michigan. Some resorts are also condominium complexes that are timeshares or owned fractionally or wholly owned condominium. A resort is not always a commercial establishment operated by a single company, but in the late 20th century, that sort of facility became more common.
A studio apartment, also known as a studio flat (UK), a self-contained apartment (Nigeria), efficiency apartment, bed-sitter (Kenya) or bachelor apartment, is a small apartment in which the normal functions of a number of rooms – often the living room, bedroom, and kitchen – are combined into a single room.
A no-frills or no frills service or product is one for which the non-essential features have been removed to keep the price low. The term "frills" originally refers to a style of fabric decoration. Something offered to customers for no additional charge may be designated as a "frill" – for example, free drinks on airline journeys, or a radio installed in a rental car. No-frills businesses operate on the principle that by removing luxurious additions, customers may be offered lower prices.
A stand-alone house is a free-standing residential building. It is sometimes referred to as a single-family home in contrast with a multi-family residential dwelling.
Hostelling Scotland is part of Hostelling International and provides youth hostel accommodation in Scotland. As of January 2022 the organisation represents 58 hostels: 31 run by Hostelling Scotland and 27 affiliates.
A common room is a type of shared lounge, most often found in halls of residence or dormitories, at universities, colleges, military bases, hospitals, rest homes, hostels, and even minimum-security prisons. They are generally connected to several private rooms, and may incorporate a bathroom. They may also be found in secondary schools and sixth form colleges.
A gîte is, typically, a holiday rental home in France, but there are many interpretations of the term 'gîte'. They range from a gîtes d'etape, a hostel, for walkers and cyclists, to a gîte rural, a holiday home in the country available for rent, often an accessory dwelling unit. The term gîte originally meant quite simply a form of shelter. Gîtes d'etape, which resemble mountain huts, or youth hostel, usually provide meals and have dormitory accommodation. They are found along Grande Randonnée long distance trails. The holiday homes type are fully furnished and equipped for self-catering. Some owners may also provide meals.
Multifamily residential is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can be next to each other, or stacked on top of each other. A common form is an apartment building. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects. Sometimes units in a multifamily residential building are condominiums, where typically the units are owned individually rather than leased from a single apartment building owner.
Casa particular is a phrase meaning private accommodation or private homestays in Cuba, very similar to a bed and breakfast, although it can also take the form of a vacation rental. When the meaning is clear, the term is often shortened to simply casa. Today, many casas particulares are rented through online agencies, some specifically Cuban, and others that work worldwide.
A kitchenette is a small cooking area, which usually has a refrigerator and a microwave, but may have other appliances. In some motel and hotel rooms, small apartments, college dormitories, or office buildings, a kitchenette consists of a small refrigerator, a microwave oven, and sometimes a sink. New York City building code defines a kitchenette as a kitchen of less than 7.4 m2 (80 ft2) of floor space.
Net café refugees, also known as cyber-homeless, are a class of homeless people in Japan who do not own or rent a residence and sleep in 24-hour Internet cafés or manga cafés. Although such cafés originally provided only Internet services, some have expanded their services to include food, drink, and showers. The term was coined in 2007 by a Nippon News Network documentary show NNN Document. The net café refugee trend has seen large numbers of people using them as their homes. The shifting definition of the industry partly reflects the dark side of Japanese economy, whose precarity has been noted since the downfall of the national economy that has lasted for decades.
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.
The Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI) is an organisation providing youth hostel accommodation in India. It is a member of the Hostelling International federation.
A hasukjib is a type of housing in South Korea that is commonly used by working adults but more popular among university students. Typically, hasukjib take the form of a small room with a single bed, desk and a mini fridge. There are several rooms on each floor of the building and usually has a restroom, shower and laundry room shared by the tenants. Meals are also often provided by the landlord or more commonly a landlady and included in the rent. The rent varies by the size of the rooms and quality of the facilities, but it's generally considered cheap and affordable. Hasukjib are often compared to gosiwon, a similar form of single-room housing in Korea.
