Portal:Hotels
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The Hotels Portal
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 (or named in some smaller hotels and B&Bs) 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.
Hotel operations vary in size, function, complexity, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set industry standards to classify hotel types. An upscale full-service hotel facility offers luxury amenities, full-service accommodations, an on-site restaurant, and the highest level of personalized service, such as a concierge, room service, and clothes-ironing staff. Full-service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with many full-service accommodations, an on-site full-service restaurant, and a variety of on-site amenities. Boutique hotels are smaller independent, non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities. Economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer longer-term full-service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. (Full article...)
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The George Hotel, also known as the George Inn and now marketed as the Ramada Crawley Gatwick, is a hotel and former coaching inn on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. The George was one of the country's most famous and successful coaching inns, and the most important in Sussex, because of its location halfway between the capital city, London, and the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton. Cited as "Crawley's most celebrated building", it has Grade II* listed status.
It is known that a building called the George has existed on the site since the 16th century or earlier, and many sources date the core of the existing inn to 1615. The George Hotel has three principal sections, facing east and running from south to north parallel with Crawley High Street. Nothing of the exterior is original, except perhaps for parts of the tiled roof. The hotel contains 84 rooms and 6 meeting rooms with a capacity of up to 150, regularly used for conferences, weddings, exhibitions, seminars and training sessions. The present structure is made up of disparate parts of various dates: the inn expanded to take in adjacent buildings as its success grew in the 18th and 19th centuries. Major changes took place in the 1930s, and the annex was knocked down in 1933. (Full article...) -
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The Hilton Washington DC National Mall The Wharf, previously known as the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, is a 367-room hotel located on the top four floors of a 12-story mixed-use building in downtown Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was designed by architect Vlastimil Koubek, and was opened on May 31, 1973, as the Loews L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, named after Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the first surveyor and designer of the street layout of the city.
The hotel sits atop L'Enfant Plaza, an esplanade and plaza structure erected above a highway and a parking garage in the Southwest quadrant of the District of Columbia. The plaza and hotel were approved in 1955, but construction did not begin on the plaza (on which the hotel sits) until 1965. The plaza and esplanade were completed in 1968. The start of construction on the hotel was delayed three years, and was completed in May 1973. The construction led to a lawsuit after it was found that the foundation of an adjoining structure had encroached on the hotel's property. The hotel suffered a serious fire in 1975 that claimed the lives of two people. (Full article...) -
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John Plankinton (March 11, 1820 – March 29, 1891) was an American businessman. He is noted for expansive real estate developments in Milwaukee, including the luxurious Plankinton House Hotel designed as an upscale residence for the wealthy. He was involved with railroading and banking. The Plankinton Bank he developed became the leading bank of Milwaukee in his lifetime. He was involved in the development of the Milwaukee City Railroad Company, an electric railway.
Plankinton was a Milwaukee-based meatpacking industrialist. He started this trade as a butcher for his general store operating in the center part of the city. He was the city's leading meat packer after his first year in the grocery business. He expanded this industry and eventually became acquainted with the meatpacking industrialist Philip D. Armour forming a company with him that lasted for 20 years. (Full article...) -
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The W New York Union Square is a 270-room, 21-story boutique hotel operated by W Hotels at the northeast corner of Park Avenue South and 17th Street, across from Union Square in Manhattan, New York. Originally known as the Germania Life Insurance Company Building, it was designed by Albert D'Oench and Joseph W. Yost and built in 1911 in the Beaux-Arts style.
The W New York Union Square building was initially the headquarters of the Germania Life Insurance Company. In 1917, when the company became the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, the building was renamed the Guardian Life Insurance Company Building. A four-story annex to the east was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and was completed in 1961. Guardian Life moved its offices out of the building in 1999, and the W New York Union Square opened the following year. (Full article...) -
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The Sands Hotel and Casino was a historic American hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States, that operated from 1952 to 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, with a prominent 56-foot (17 m) high sign, the Sands was the seventh resort to open on the Strip. During its heyday, it hosted many famous entertainers of the day, most notably the Rat Pack and Jerry Lewis.
The hotel was established in 1952 by Mack Kufferman, who bought the LaRue Restaurant which had opened a year earlier. The hotel was opened on December 15, 1952, as a casino and hotel with 200 rooms. The hotel rooms were divided into four two-story motel wings, each with fifty rooms, and named after famous race tracks. Crime bosses such as Doc Stacher and Meyer Lansky acquired shares in the hotel and attracted Frank Sinatra, who made his performing debut at Sands in October 1953. Sinatra later bought a share in the hotel himself. In 1960, the classic caper film Ocean's 11 was shot at the hotel, and it subsequently attained iconic status, with regular performances by Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr., Red Skelton and others in the hotel's world-renowned Copa Room. (Full article...) -
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The Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan (originally the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Manhattan) is a hotel at 1601 Broadway, between 48th and 49th Streets, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The hotel is operated by third-party franchisee Highgate and is part of the Intercontinental Hotels Group's Crowne Plaza chain. It has 795 guest rooms.
The hotel was designed by Alan Lapidus and is 480 feet (150 m) tall with 46 floors. The facade was designed in glass and pink granite, with a 100-foot-tall (30 m) arch facing Broadway. The hotel was designed to comply with city regulations that required deep setbacks at the base, as well as large illuminated signs. In addition to the hotel rooms themselves, the Crowne Plaza Times Square contains ground-story retail space, nine stories of office space, and a 159-space parking garage. The hotel's tenants include the American Management Association, and Learning Tree International; in addition, New York Sports Club was a former tenant. (Full article...) -
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The Trump International Hotel and Tower, originally the Gulf and Western Building, is a high-rise building at 15 Columbus Circle and 1 Central Park West on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City. It was originally designed by Thomas E. Stanley as an office building and completed in 1970 as the headquarters of Gulf and Western Industries. In the mid-1990s, a joint venture composed of the General Electric Pension Fund, Galbreath Company, and developer Donald Trump renovated the building into a hotel and residential tower. The renovation was designed by Philip Johnson and Costas Kondylis.
The Trump International Hotel and Tower is 583 ft (178 m) tall and has contained 44 physical stories since it was built. The building originally had an aluminum-and-marble facade and was surrounded by a public plaza on Broadway and Central Park West. There was a theater and shops in the basement as well as a restaurant on the top floor. After the building was renovated, a glass facade was installed. The lower portion of the tower is used as a hotel, while the upper floor is a residential condominium. (Full article...) -
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The Waldorf-Astoria originated as two hotels, built side by side by feuding relatives, on Fifth Avenue in New York, New York, United States. Built in 1893 and expanded in 1897, the hotels were razed in 1929 to make way for construction of the Empire State Building. Their successor, the current Waldorf Astoria New York, was built on Park Avenue in 1931.
The original Waldorf Hotel opened on March 13, 1893, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, on the site where millionaire developer William Waldorf Astor had previously built his mansion. Constructed in the German Renaissance style by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, it stood 225 feet (69 m) high, with fifteen public rooms and 450 guest rooms, and a further 100 rooms allocated to servants, with laundry facilities on the upper floors. It was heavily furnished with antiques purchased by founding manager and president George Boldt and his wife during an 1892 visit to Europe. The Empire Room was the largest and most lavishly adorned room in the Waldorf, and soon after opening it became one of the best restaurants in New York, rivaling Delmonico's and Sherry's. (Full article...) -
Image 9Pikes Hotel, now known as Pikes Ibiza, is a luxury hotel in Ibiza, in the Balearic Islands of Spain. It is located in the countryside, 1.6 miles (2.6 km) to the northeast of the town of Sant Antoni de Portmany, and 10.2 miles (16.4 km) to the northwest of Ibiza Town. A 15th-century stone mansion which was a finca (farm estate), it was converted into a hotel in 1978 by British-born Australian Anthony Pike.
The hotel, cited as one of the most famous or infamous hotels on the island, developed a notorious reputation for hedonism in the 1980s, and is associated with being a playground for the rich and famous. It is best known for being the location of filming for Wham!'s 1983 hit "Club Tropicana" and for Freddie Mercury's 41st birthday bash in 1987, cited as one of the most lavish parties ever to be held on Ibiza. (Full article...) -
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The Brinks Hotel in Saigon, also known as the Brink Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ), was bombed by the Viet Cong on the evening of December 24, 1964, during the Vietnam War. Two Viet Cong operatives detonated a car bomb underneath the hotel, which housed United States Army officers. The explosion killed two Americans, an officer and an NCO, and injured approximately 60, including military personnel and Vietnamese civilians.
The Viet Cong commanders had planned the venture with two objectives in mind. Firstly, by attacking an American installation in the center of the heavily guarded capital, the Viet Cong intended to demonstrate their ability to strike in South Vietnam should the United States decide to launch air raids against North Vietnam. Secondly, the bombing would demonstrate to the South Vietnamese that the Americans were vulnerable and could not be relied upon for protection. (Full article...) -
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The Virgin Hotels Chicago (formerly Old Dearborn Bank Building or 203 North Wabash Avenue) is a historic building in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, that has been converted from use as an office building to use as a hotel run via a mobile app-based business model. The 250-room hotel is the first of Richard Branson's Virgin Hotels brand boutique hotels geared toward the female business traveller. (Full article...) -
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Hotel Valley Ho is a historic hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona. Also called the Valley Ho and, for 28 years, the Ramada Valley Ho, the hotel was originally designed by Edward L. Varney. It first opened in 1956 with a forward-looking and futuristic design. Movie stars and famous baseball players stayed, and the building quickly became known for its trendsetting guests and its fashionable atmosphere. The success of the venture resulted in expansion in 1958, with two additional two-story wings of guest rooms extending to the north. Though initially proposed by Varney, a central tower of guest rooms, rising over the lobby, was not built.
The property was bought by the Ramada hotel chain in 1973, and was redecorated to cover the 1950s design, seen at the time as outdated. No longer in vogue, but centrally located, the hotel remained prominent for years, and hosted conferences, business meetings, and vacationers. Under Ramada management, however, the property began to show a lack of maintenance, and its popularity declined. It closed in 2001 and its demolition was considered when no purchase offers were received. Admirers of the hotel's exemplary architecture and its local history rallied to save it, and it was placed on the Scottsdale Historic Register. (Full article...) -
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The Ritz Paris is a hotel in central Paris, overlooking the Place Vendôme in the city's 1st arrondissement. A member of The Leading Hotels of the World marketing group, the Ritz Paris is ranked among the most luxurious hotels in the world.
The hotel was founded in 1898 by the Swiss hotelier César Ritz in collaboration with the French chef Auguste Escoffier. The hotel was constructed behind the façade of an eighteenth-century townhouse. It was among the first hotels in Europe to provide an en suite bathroom, electricity, and a telephone for each room. It quickly established a reputation for luxury and attracted a clientele that included royalty, politicians, writers, film stars, and singers. Several of its suites are named in honour of famous guests of the hotel including Coco Chanel, and the cocktail lounge Bar Hemingway pays tribute to writer Ernest Hemingway. (Full article...) -
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The Hôtel d'Alluye is an hôtel particulier in Blois, Loir-et-Cher, France. Built for Florimond Robertet when he was secretary and notary to Louis XII, the residence bears the name of his barony of Alluyes. On Rue Saint-Honoré near Blois Cathedral and the Château de Blois, it is now significantly smaller than it was originally as the north and west wings were destroyed between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.
Built between 1498 (or 1500) and 1508, the hôtel particulier is one of the first examples of Renaissance architecture in Blois. Its façades consist of Gothic, French Renaissance and Italian Renaissance architecture. The Hôtel d'Alluye was owned by the Robertet family from 1508 until 1606 before undergoing frequent changes in ownership; since 2007, it has been divided into ten apartments and a large office. (Full article...) -
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The Dorchester is a five-star hotel located on Park Lane and Deanery Street in London, to the east of Hyde Park. It is one of the world's most prestigious hotels. The Dorchester opened on 18 April 1931, and it still retains its 1930s furnishings and ambiance despite being modernised.
Throughout its history, the hotel has been closely associated with the rich and famous. During the 1930s, it became known as a haunt of numerous writers and artists such as poet Cecil Day-Lewis, novelist Somerset Maugham, and the painter Sir Alfred Munnings. It has held prestigious literary gatherings, such as the "Foyles Literary Luncheons", an event the hotel still hosts today. During the Second World War, the strength of its construction gave the hotel the reputation of being one of London's safest buildings, and notable members of political parties and the military chose it as their London residence. Queen Elizabeth II attended the Dorchester when she was a princess on the day prior to the announcement of her engagement to Philip Mountbatten on 10 July 1947. The hotel has since become particularly popular with film actors, models and rock stars, and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton frequently stayed at the hotel throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The hotel became a Grade II Listed Building in January 1981, and was subsequently purchased by the Sultan of Brunei in 1985. It belongs to the Dorchester Collection, which in turn is owned by the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA), an arm of the Ministry of Finance of Brunei. (Full article...)
General images - show new batch
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Image 1The Waldorf Astoria New York, the most expensive hotel ever sold, cost US$1.95 billion in 2014. (from Hotel)
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Image 2Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden (from Hotel)
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Image 3Holiday Inn's "Great Sign", used until 1982. Some remain in museums. (from Motel)
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Image 7Abandoned Grand West Courts in Chicago, demolished in September 2013 (from Motel)
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Image 8The Peninsula New York hotel, located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan (from Hotel)
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Image 9Wigwam Motel No. 6, a unique motel/motor court on historic Route 66 in Holbrook, Arizona (from Motel)
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Image 11The Harrison Hotel, an SRO hotel in Oakland, California. (from Apartment hotel)
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Image 14Motels frequently have large pools, such as the Thunderbird Motel on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon (1973). (from Motel)
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Image 15The Boody House Hotel in Toledo, Ohio (from Hotel)
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Image 17Sign on Chicago motel (from Motel)
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Image 21Ithaa, the first undersea restaurant at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island resort (from Hotel)
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Image 25The Star Lite Motel in Dilworth, Minnesota is a typical American 1950s L-shaped motel. (from Motel)
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Image 26An apartment hotel in Hammond, Indiana (from Apartment hotel)
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Image 27Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island from Jumeirah Beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge (from Hotel)
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Image 29The 4 Seasons Motel sign in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin is an excellent example of googie architecture. (from Motel)
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Image 31A typical hotel room with a bed, desk, and television (from Hotel)
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Image 33On top of the cliff, the Riosol Hotel in Mogán (from Hotel)
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Image 34Tremont House in Boston, United States, a luxury hotel, the first to provide indoor plumbing (from Hotel)
Selected articles - load new batch
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Image 1Jin Jiang International (Holdings) Co., Ltd. is a tourism and hospitality company headquartered in Shanghai, China, and owned by the Shanghai Municipal People's Government. (Full article...)
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Azimut Hotels is a privately held Russian company that manages an international hotel chain. By mid-2021, it operated 40 hotels in Russia and Europe. According to Hotels Magazine, in 2015 the company was among the largest hotel networks worldwide. From 2008 to 2013 the company engaged in several significant acquisitions, partnerships and hotel purchases that significantly increased their overall number of properties. (Full article...) -
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Pakistan Services Limited, doing business as Pearl-Continental Hotels & Resorts (also abbreviated to PC Hotels), is the largest chain of five-star hotels in Pakistan with properties in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Gwadar, Bhurban, Muzaffarabad. and Malam Jabba, and under construction in Multan, Attabad Lake, Sukkur, Mirpur, Hayatabad, and Hyderabad. Pearl-Continental Hotels is a subsidiary of Hashoo Group who also operate Marriott Hotels in Islamabad and Karachi through a franchise system. (Full article...) -
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The Clown Motel is a clown-themed motel along north Main Street in Tonopah, Nevada, which has been referred to as "America's scariest motel". The building is located adjacent to the historic Tonopah Cemetery, where the father of the original owners is buried. (Full article...) -
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The ITC Grand Chola is a 5-star luxury hotel in Chennai, India. It is located in Guindy, opposite SPIC building and along the same row of buildings as Ashok Leyland Towers. The building, designed by Singapore-based SRSS Architects, is of mixed-use development with three separate wings and is themed after traditional Dravidian architecture of the Chola dynasty. The hotel is the ninth hotel in The Luxury Collection brand.
The hotel, built on over 1,600,000 sq ft, is dubbed the largest stand-alone hotel in the country built with an investment of ₹ 12,000 million and has the largest convention centre in the country built on 100,000 sq ft with a 30,000-sq ft pillar-less ballroom. In terms of room inventory, it is the third largest hotel in India with 600 rooms after Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre Hotel – now rebranded as The Westin Mumbai Powai Lake (759 rooms) and Grand Hyatt (694 rooms), both in Mumbai. (Full article...) -
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An ice hotel is a temporary hotel made up of snow and sculpted blocks of ice. Ice hotels, dependent on sub-freezing temperatures, are constructed from ice and snow and typically have to be rebuilt every year. Ice hotels exist in several countries, and they have varying construction styles, services and amenities, the latter of which may include ice bars, restaurants, chapels, saunas and hot tubs. (Full article...) -
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Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is a global chain of luxury hotel that operates more than 70 properties worldwide, with a strong presence in Canada.
The company originated from two hotel businesses established in the late 19th century, the Canadian Pacific Limited-owned Canadian Pacific Hotels & Resorts, and Fairmont Hotels. In 1999, Canadian Pacific Hotels acquired a majority interest in Fairmont Hotels; with Canadian Pacific Hotels later renaming its entire hotel portfolio under the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts banner in 2001. Shortly after the hotel division was renamed, Canadian Pacific Limited was split into several smaller companies in a starburst move, with Fairmont becoming a separately-traded company.
In 2006, Fairmont was acquired by Colony Capital, who subsequently entered into a joint partnership with the Kingdom Holding Company; consolidating Fairmont with their other hotel brands, Raffles and Swissôtel to form Fairmont Raffles Hotels International (FRHI). FRHI in turn became a subsidiary of AccorHotels in 2016. (Full article...) -
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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. (Full article...) -
Image 9Four Seasons Hotels Limited, trading as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, is a Canadian luxury hotel and resort company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Four Seasons currently operates more than 100 hotels and resorts worldwide. Since 2007, Bill Gates (through Cascade Investment) and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal (through Kingdom Holding Company) have been majority owners of the company. As of January 2022, Cascade Investment owns 71.25% and Kingdom Holding Company owns 23.75% of the hotel and resort company. (Full article...)
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Image 10BTG Homeinns is a hotel chain in China. It is a part of BTH Hotels and its headquarters are in the Xuhui District, Shanghai. (Full article...)
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A minibar is a small refrigerator, typically an absorption refrigerator, in a hotel room or cruise ship stateroom. The hotel staff fill it with drinks and snacks for the guest to purchase during their stay. It is stocked with a precise inventory of goods, with a price list. The guest is charged for goods consumed when checking out of the hotel. Some newer minibars use infrared or other automated methods of recording purchases. These detect the removal of an item, and charge the guest's credit card right away, even if the item is not consumed. This is done to prevent loss of product, theft and lost revenue.
The minibar is commonly stocked with small bottles of alcoholic beverages, juice, bottled water, and soft drinks. There may also be candy, cookies, crackers, and other small snacks. Prices are generally very high compared to similar items purchased from a store, because the guest is paying for the convenience of immediate access and also the upkeep of the bar. Prices vary, but a common price for a can of a non-alacoholic beverage is $6-10 USD. Due to the convenience of room service and the minibar, prices charged to the patron are much higher than the hotel's restaurant or tuck shop. As premium bottled water has become popular with guests since the 2000s, there is "ambient placement" of such chargeable products outside the minibar and in the guests' line of vision; for example "by placing [bottled] water on bedside tables, during the night, people are more likely to grab it than get up to get a glass of water".
The world's first minibar was introduced at the Hong Kong Hilton Hotel by manager Robert Arnold in 1974. In the months following its introduction in-room drink sales increased 500%, and the Hong Kong Hilton's overall annual revenue was boosted by 5%. The following year the Hilton group rolled out the minibar concept across all its hotels. (Full article...) -
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The Gobbler was a motel, supper club, and roadside attraction in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin, United States. It was designed in the late 1960s by Fort Atkinson architect Helmut Ajango for local poultry processor Clarence Hartwig and opened in 1967. The menu featured turkey, prime rib and steak. It included a rotating circular bar that completed one revolution every 80 minutes. The Gobbler was at the intersection of Wisconsin Highway 26 and I-94, halfway between Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin. It closed in 1992. The original restaurant building reopened as the Gobbler Theater in late 2015. (Full article...) -
Image 13The Stanley Hotel is a 140-room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, United States, about five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley, co-founder of the Stanley Motor Carriage Company, and opened on July 4, 1909, as a resort for upper-class Easterners and a health retreat for sufferers of pulmonary tuberculosis. The hotel and its surrounding structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the hotel includes a restaurant, spa, and bed-and-breakfast; with panoramic views of Lake Estes, the Rockies, and Longs Peak.
The Stanley Hotel served as the inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's 1977 novel The Shining and its 1980 film adaptation. It was also a filming location for the related 1997 TV miniseries. (Full article...) -
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A caravanserai (or caravansary; /kærəˈvænsəˌraɪ/) was a roadside inn where travelers (caravaners) could rest and recover from the day's journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa and Southeast Europe, most notably the Silk Road. Often located along rural roads in the countryside, urban versions of caravanserais were also historically common in cities throughout the Islamic world, and were often called other names such as khan, wikala, or funduq. (Full article...) -
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4 Park Avenue (formerly known as the Vanderbilt Hotel) is a 22-story building in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Warren and Wetmore, the structure was built for Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and opened in 1912 as a hotel. It is along the west side of Park Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets. Following a renovation by Schuman, Lichtenstein & Claman between 1965 and 1967, the top 18 stories have been used as residential apartments. The lowest three stories above ground, as well as three basement levels, are used as commercial space and carry an alternate address of 6 Park Avenue. , the building is owned by The Feil Organization.
4 Park Avenue's facade was originally made of gray brick and white architectural terracotta. The facade of the lowest four stories dates from the 1960s renovation and is made of glass and steel. Above that, the building retains its original facade and has two light courts facing Park Avenue. The building has a steel superstructure and had mechanical equipment in its basements. The hotel's lobby was designed in the Adam style and is partially preserved as the modern residential lobby. The first basement had a grill room known as the Della Robbia Room, decorated ornately with Guastavino tile; part of the room survives and is designated as a New York City interior landmark. The upper stories had close to 600 rooms, and the top two stories originally contained a private penthouse apartment for A. G. Vanderbilt and his family.
After several years of planning and construction, the Vanderbilt Hotel opened on January 10, 1912, as one of the first large commercial developments in Murray Hill. The Vanderbilt soon became a popular meeting place for companies in the textile and women's apparel industries. A syndicate bought the hotel in 1925, and the New York Life Insurance Company foreclosed on the hotel in 1935. Manger Hotels acquired the hotel in 1941 and continued to operate it until the hotel closed in 1965. A group led by John Marqusee bought the building in 1966 and spent the next year converting the hotel into residences and offices. The building has undergone minor renovations over the years. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that the operator of the Commodore Hotel once hosted a circus, featuring an elephant in the ballroom, to impress visiting hoteliers?
- ... that in the 1980s, New York City's St. Regis Hotel was said to have hosted every U.S. president since its opening?
- ... that during meetings at the United Nations headquarters, the United Nations Plaza Hotel was said to have more security than guests?
- ... that the lobby of the Royalton Hotel was once compared to an ocean liner?
- ... that when part of New York City's Hotel Riverview became a theater, some people thought that the hotel's overflowing toilets and leaky ceilings were part of the show there?
- ... that New York City's Hotel Knickerbocker closed after fourteen years of operation and did not reopen for nearly a century?
- ... that the Hotel Wolcott had to be sold less than a year after it opened?
- ... that the New Yorker Hotel once had the largest private power plant in the United States?
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