|
"Hotel" is the letter H in the NATO phonetic alphabet. See Hotel for the American television program that aired on ABC from 1983 until 1988.
 A small hotel in Mureck, Styria, Austria which has preserved its 1960s exterior and interior |
 The lobby of the Hotel Reineldis |
 The 4-star Manor House Hotel at Castle Combe, Wiltshire, England. Built in the fourteenth century, the hotel has 48 rooms and 365 acres (1.5 km²) of gardens. |
A hotel is an establishment that provides lodging, usually on a short-term basis. Hotels often provide a number of additional guest services such as a restaurant, a swimming pool or child care. Some hotels have conference services and encourage groups to hold conventions and meetings at their location.
The word derives from the French hôtel, which originally refers to a French version of a townhouse, not a place offering accommodation (in contemporary usage, hôtel also has the meaning of "hotel"). The French spelling (with the circumflex) was once also used in English, but is now rare.
Hotels differ from motels in that most motels have drive-up, exterior entrances to the rooms, while hotels tend to have interior entrances to the rooms.
The cost and quality of hotels are usually indicative of the range and type of services available. Due to the enormous increase in tourism worldwide, during the last decades of the 20th century standards, especially those of smaller establishments, have improved considerably. For the sake of greater comparability, rating systems have been introduced, with the one to five stars classification being most common.
Basic accommodation of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand only has largely been replaced by rooms with en-suite bathrooms. Other features found may be a TV, a telephone and an alarm clock. Food and drink may be supplied by a small refrigerator (usually referred to as "mini-bar") containing snacks and drinks (to be paid for on departure), and tea and coffee making facilities (cups, spoons, an electric kettle and sachets containing instant coffee, tea bags, sugar, and creamer).
However, in Japan the capsule hotel supplies minimal facilities and room space.
Hotels may be family-run or individually-owned or part of national and worldwide hotel chains.
Hotels in fiction
Hotels have often been chosen by authors as the setting of their literary works, e.g. The Hotel New Hampshire. It is especially true of crime fiction (Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun, A Caribbean Mystery, At Bertram's Hotel; Cyril Hare's Suicide Excepted) and farces. Hotels also feature prominently in films (Grand Hotel, Room Service, Plaza Suite), television series (Fawlty Towers, Hotelier), and songs, e.g. "Hotel California".
Other usage
In Australia, the word "hotel" often refers to a public house, a drinking establishment which does not necessarily provide accommodations. In India, the word may also refer to a restaurant, since earlier the best restaurants were always situated next to a good hotel.
See also
|
