Historic inns and boutique hotels and statue of
Tsar Nicholas I in
Saint Petersburg, Russia , Estonia
Boutique hotels are typically hotels with a unique environment or intimate setting. Some hotels have gained their renown through tradition, by hosting significant events or persons, such as Schloss
Cecilienhof in
Potsdam, Germany, which derives its fame from the
Potsdam Conference of the
World War II allies
Winston Churchill,
Harry Truman and
Joseph Stalin in 1945. The
Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in
Mumbai is one of India's most famous and historic hotels because of its association with the
Indian independence movement. Some establishments have given name to a particular meal or beverage, as is the case with the
Waldorf Astoria in
New York City, United States where the
Waldorf Salad was first created or the
Hotel Sacher in
Vienna, Austria, home of the
Sachertorte. Others have achieved fame by association with dishes or cocktails created on their premises, such as the
Hotel de Paris where the
crêpe Suzette was invented or the
Raffles Hotel in
Singapore, where the
Singapore Sling cocktail was devised. in
France A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, such as the
Ritz Hotel in
London, through its association with
Irving Berlin's song, "
Puttin' on the Ritz". The
Algonquin Hotel in New York City is famed as the meeting place of the literary group, the
Algonquin Round Table, and
Hotel Chelsea, also in New York City, has been the subject of a number of songs and the scene of the stabbing of
Nancy Spungen (allegedly by her boyfriend
Sid Vicious).
Resort hotels on Brickell Key in Florida , Macau , China Some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself to create a captive trade as a
resort, example at
casinos,
amusement parks and
seaside resorts. Though hotels have always been built in popular destinations, the defining characteristic of a
resort hotel is that it exists purely to serve another attraction, the two having the same owners. On the
Las Vegas Strip there is a tradition of
one-upmanship with luxurious and extravagant hotels in a concentrated area. This trend now has extended to other resorts worldwide, but the concentration in Las Vegas is still the world's highest: nineteen of the world's twenty-five largest hotels by room count are on the Strip, with a total of over 67,000 rooms.
Bunker hotels The
Null Stern Hotel in
Teufen,
Appenzellerland, Switzerland, and the Concrete Mushrooms in
Albania are former nuclear
bunkers transformed into hotels.
Cave hotels The Cuevas Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (named after the
author) in
Guadix, Spain, as well as several hotels in
Cappadocia, Turkey, are notable for being built into natural cave formations, some with rooms underground. The Desert Cave Hotel in
Coober Pedy, South Australia, is built into the remains of an
opal mine.
Cliff hotels Located on the coast but high above sea level, these hotels offer unobstructed panoramic views and a great sense of privacy without the feeling of total isolation. Some examples from around the globe are the Riosol Hotel in Gran Canaria, Caruso Belvedere Hotel in Amalfi Coast (Italy), Aman Resorts Amankila in Bali, Birkenhead House in Hermanus (South Africa), The Caves in Jamaica and Caesar Augustus in Capri.
Capsule hotels in
Osaka, Japan
Capsule hotels are a type of economical hotel first introduced in Japan, where people sleep in stacks of rectangular containers. In the sleeping capsules, beside the bed, the customer can watch TV, put their valuables in the mini safes, and the customers also can use the wireless internet.
Day room hotels Some hotels fill daytime occupancy with
day rooms, for example,
Rodeway Inn and Suites near
Port Everglades in
Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Day rooms are booked in a block of hours typically between 8 am and 5 pm, before the typical night shift. These are similar to transit hotels in that they appeal to travelers, however, unlike transit hotels, they do not eliminate the need to go through Customs. An emerging trend is hotels offering day passes for guests to use the facilities for the day, without having to pay a full fee for an overnight stay, such as a
ResortPass.
Garden hotels Garden hotels often originate as famous buildings with gardens before becoming luxury hotels. In Britain, the conversion into a hotel commonly results from the need to improve the finances of estates. These include
Gravetye Manor, the home of garden designer
William Robinson, and
Cliveden, designed by
Charles Barry with a rose garden by
Geoffrey Jellicoe. Other prominent examples include the
Abbasi Hotel in
Iran, and
Hostal dos Reis Católicos in
Spain.
Ice, snow and igloo hotels The Ice Hotel in
Jukkasjärvi,
Sweden, was the first ice hotel in the world; first built in 1990, it is built each winter and melts every spring. The Hotel de Glace in Duschenay,
Canada, opened in 2001 and it is North America's only ice hotel. It is redesigned and rebuilt in its entirety every year. Ice hotels can also be included within larger ice complexes; for example, the Mammut Snow Hotel in Finland is located within the walls of the
Kemi snow castle; and the Lainio Snow Hotel is part of a snow village near
Ylläs, Finland. There is an arctic snowhotel in
Rovaniemi in
Lapland, Finland, along with glass igloos. The first glass igloos were built in 1999 in
Finland, they became the Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort with 65 buildings, 53 small ones for two people and 12 large ones for four people. Glass igloos, with their roof made of thermal glass, allow guests to admire
auroras comfortably from their beds.
Love hotels A love hotel (also 'love motel', especially in Taiwan) is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world, operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for
sexual activities, typically for one to three hours, but with overnight as an option. Styles of premises vary from extremely low-end to extravagantly appointed. In Japan, love hotels have a history of over 400 years.
Portable modular hotels In 2021 a New York-based company introduced new
modular and movable hotel rooms which allow landowners and
hospitality groups to create and easily
scale hotel accommodations. The
portable units can be built in three to five months and can be stacked to create multi-floor units.
Referral hotel A referral hotel is a hotel chain that offers branding to independently operated hotels; the chain itself is founded by or owned by the member hotels as a group. Many former referral chains have been converted to franchises; the largest surviving member-owned chain is
Best Western.
Railway hotels The first recorded purpose-built railway hotel was the
Great Western Hotel, which opened adjacent to
Reading railway station in 1844, shortly after the
Great Western Railway opened its line from London. The building still exists, and although it has been used for other purposes over the years, it is now again a hotel and a member of the
Malmaison hotel chain. Frequently, expanding railway companies built grand hotels at their termini, such as the
Midland Hotel, Manchester next to
the former Manchester Central Station, and in London the ones above
St Pancras railway station and
Charing Cross railway station. London also has the Chiltern Court Hotel above
Baker Street tube station, there are also
Canada's grand railway hotels. They are or were mostly, but not exclusively, used by those traveling by rail.
Straw bale hotels The Maya Guesthouse in Nax Mont-Noble in the Swiss Alps, is the first hotel in Europe built entirely with straw bales. Due to the insulation values of the walls it needs no conventional heating or air conditioning system, although the Maya Guesthouse is built at an altitude of in the Alps.
Transit hotels Transit hotels are short stay hotels typically used at international airports where passengers can stay while waiting to change airplanes. The hotels are typically on the
airside and do not require a visa for a stay or re-admission through security checkpoints.
Treehouse hotels Some hotels are built with living trees as structural elements, for example the Treehotel near
Piteå, Sweden, the Costa Rica Tree House near the
Jairo Mora Sandoval Gandoca-Manzanillo Mixed Wildlife Refuge,
Costa Rica; the
Treetops Hotel in
Aberdare National Park,
Kenya; the
Ariau Towers near
Manaus, Brazil, on the
Rio Negro in the
Amazon; and Bayram's Tree Houses in
Olympos, Turkey.
Underwater hotels , the first undersea restaurant at the
Conrad Maldives Rangali Island resort Some hotels have accommodation underwater, such as
Utter Inn in
Lake Mälaren, Sweden.
Hydropolis, project in
Dubai, would have had suites on the bottom of the
Persian Gulf, and Jules' Undersea Lodge in
Key Largo,
Florida, requires
scuba diving to access its rooms.
Overwater hotels in the
Maldives A
resort island is an island or an archipelago that contains resorts, hotels, overwater bungalows, restaurants, tourist attractions and its amenities.
Maldives has the most overwater bungalows resorts.
Yurt hotels Yurts are circular, self-supporting structures with long
rafters coalescing toward a central
dome. During the day, the dome allows
sunlight to illuminate the entire yurt interior, while
moonlight and
starlight shine through the dome at night.
Other specialty hotels stands on an
artificial island from
Jumeirah Beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge • The
Burj al-Arab hotel in
Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, built on an artificial island, is structured in the shape of a boat's sail. • The
Library Hotel in New York City, is unique in that each of its ten floors is assigned one category from the
Dewey Decimal System. • The Jailhotel Löwengraben in
Lucerne, Switzerland, the Malmaison in
Oxford, and Bodmin Jail Hotel in
Bodmin, are in converted prisons now used as hotels. • The
Luxor, a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in
Paradise, Nevada, United States is unusual due to its pyramidal structure. •
The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong on floors 102-118 of the
International Commerce Centre in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The lobby is above the ground. It was the highest hotel in the world from 2011 to 2019, and the first hotel located above 100 storeys. • The
Marina Bay Sands in Singapore has the world's longest
infinity pool, with a vanishing edge located above ground. • The
Liberty Hotel in
Boston used to be the
Charles Street Jail. • Hotel Kakslauttanen in
Finland is a collection of glass igloos in Lapland that allow guests to watch the Northern Lights from their rooms. • Built in
Scotland and completed in 1936, the former
ocean liner in
Long Beach, California, United States uses its first-class staterooms as a hotel, having retired in 1967 from transatlantic service. • The
Wigwam Motels used patented
novelty architecture in which each motel room was a free-standing concrete wigwam or teepee. •
The Bus Collective in
Singapore was built from 20 retired public buses, and opened in 2023. ==Records==