Boutique hotels are small-capacity hotels that provide more personalized service than typical hotels. They typically have fewer than a hundred rooms, and are considered more "trendy" and "intimate", often due to their location in urban areas. They may be themed, such as by having a focus on nature, environment, cuisine, history, community and cultural immersion, attentive service, or well-being. [1] [2]
Boutique hotels first began appearing in the 1980s in major cities such as London, New York, and San Francisco. There is debate about who started the boutique hotel concept. Blakes Hotel in South Kensington, London, designed by Anouska Hempel, and the Bedford in Union Square, San Francisco, both founded in 1981, may have started the trend. Morgans Hotel, founded in 1984 by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, is regarded by some as the real start. [3]
The term "boutique hotel" was coined by Steve Rubell, who compared Morgans Hotel to a boutique as opposed to a department store, to which chain hotels were compared. [4]
In recent times, boutique hotels have grown in popularity, corresponding with the general public's increased interest in individualized service. Many hotel chains have begun to focus on creating subsidiary hotels to establish smaller, boutique-style hotels, [5] or in acquiring previously independent boutique hotels. [6]
Boutique hotels are typically furnished in a themed, stylish, and/or aspirational [7] manner with distinctive concepts. These concepts often reflect the local culture and neighborhoods in which the hotels reside. Typically, these hotels are designed to have a more "intimate" feel than many larger hotel chains. [8]
Boutique hotels are commonly found in the city centers of London, New York City, Miami, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. They are also found in resort destinations and may be furnished with amenities such as spas, yoga, and painting classes. [9]
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.
Hard Rock Cafe, Inc. is a chain of theme bar-restaurants, memorabilia shops, casinos and museums founded in 1971 by Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton in London. In 1979, the cafe began covering its walls with rock and roll memorabilia, a tradition which expanded to others in the chain. In 2007, Hard Rock Cafe International (USA), Inc. was sold to the Seminole Tribe of Florida and was headquartered in Orlando, Florida, until April 2018, when the corporate offices were relocated to Davie, Florida. As of July 2018, Hard Rock International has venues in 74 countries, including 172 bar or cafe-restaurants, 37 hotels, and four casinos.
An Internet café, also known as a cybercafé, is a café that provides the use of computers with high bandwidth Internet access on the payment of a fee. Usage is generally charged by the minute or part of hour. An Internet café will generally also offer refreshments or other services such as phone repair. Internet cafés are often hosted within a shop or other establishment. They are located worldwide, and many people use them when traveling to access webmail and instant messaging services to keep in touch with family and friends. Apart from travelers, in many developing countries Internet cafés are the primary form of Internet access for citizens as a shared-access model is more affordable than personal ownership of equipment and/or software. Internet cafés are a natural evolution of the traditional café. As Internet access rose many pubs, bars, and cafés added terminals and eventually Wi-Fi hotspots, eroding the distinction between the Internet café and normal cafés.
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.
Planet Hollywood International Inc. is a themed restaurant chain inspired by the popular portrayal of Hollywood. The company is owned by Earl Enterprises corporation. Earl Enterprises was founded by Robert Earl.
Steve Rubell was an American entrepreneur and co-owner of the New York City disco Studio 54.
A theme restaurant is a type of restaurant that uses theming to attract diners by creating a memorable experience. Theme restaurants have a unifying or dominant subject or concept, and utilize architecture, decor, special effects, and other techniques, often to create exotic environments that are not normally associated with dining because they are inaccessible, no longer exist, are fictional or supernatural, or taboo. The theme may be further extended through the naming and choices of food, though food is usually secondary to entertaining guests.
Ian Schrager is an American entrepreneur, hotelier and real estate developer, credited for co-creating the "boutique hotel" category of accommodation. Originally, he gained fame as co-owner and co-founder of Studio 54.
Single room occupancy is a form of housing that is typically aimed at residents with low or minimal incomes, or single adults who like a minimalist lifestyle, who rent small, furnished single rooms with a bed, chair, and sometimes a small desk. SRO units are rented out as permanent residence and/or primary residence to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants share a kitchen, toilets or bathrooms. SRO units range from 7 to 13 square metres. In some instances, contemporary units may have a small refrigerator, microwave, or sink.
A boutique is a retail shop that deals in high end fashionable clothing or accessories. The word is French for "shop", which derives ultimately from the Ancient Greek ἀποθήκη (apothēkē) "storehouse".
A wine bar is a tavern-like business focusing on selling wine, rather than liquor or beer. A typical feature of many wine bars is a wide selection of wines available by the glass. Some wine bars are profiled on wines of a certain type of origin, such as Italian wine or Champagne. While many wine bars are private "stand-alone" establishments, in some cases, wine bars are associated with a specific wine retailer or other outlet of wine, to provide additional marketing for that retailer's wine portfolio. In countries where licensing regulations allow this, some wine bars also sell the wines they serve, and effectively function as a hybrid between a wine shop and a wine bar.
Morgans Hotel Group was a global, publicly-traded hospitality company founded by Ian Schrager and specialized in the boutique hotel category. Its foundations were laid in 1984 with the opening of the namesake Morgans Hotel in New York City. MHG was listed on the NASDAQ exchange for over a decade.
Morgans Hotel was the world's first boutique hotel, located at 237 Madison Avenue in New York City. Founded by Studio 54 cofounder Ian Schrager as the first property in the Morgans Hotel Group, it opened in 1984.
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.
The Royalton Hotel is a hotel at 44 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The hotel, opened in 1898, was designed by architecture firm Rossiter & Wright and developed by civil engineer Edward G. Bailey. The 13-story building is made of brick, stone, terracotta, and iron. The hotel's lobby, which connects 43rd and 44th Streets, contains a bar and restaurant. The upper stories originally featured 90 apartments, but these were replaced with 205 guestrooms when Philippe Starck and Gruzen Samton Steinglass Architects converted the Royalton to a boutique hotel in the 1980s.
Malmaison operates sixteen hotels in the United Kingdom. The company was established in 1994, and is now owned by Frasers Property.
Joie de Vivre Hospitality is a hotel and restaurant company based in San Francisco, California, and the second-largest operator of boutique hotels in the United States.
Nakajima USA, Inc., is an American toy manufacturer, founded in 2000. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nakajima Japan, a family run company founded in 1919. A seasoned company in the design and manufacture of licensed plush, collectible and seasonal toys and gifts, Nakajima USA currently produces and distributes a wide range of lifestyle products under a master license agreement for Sanrio Inc. as well as the company’s signature characters.
BLOC Hotels are a UK based hotel chain. It is noted for the innovative design of its hotel rooms, which are constructed offsite, and then installed in a hotel. The concept was created after BLOC's founders studied capsule hotels, which are commonly located in Japan.
Stayful was a website and mobile application that allows consumers to bid for or book rooms at independent and boutique hotels. The rooms, which may have otherwise gone unsold, are sold at a lower price than the published rate for the consumer and a lower cost of distribution for the hotel.
