Portal:Hotels
Portal maintenance status: (July 2022)
|
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...)
Recognized articles - load new batch
-
Image 1
The Millennium Times Square New York (formerly the Hotel Macklowe and the Millennium Broadway) is a hotel at 133 and 145 West 44th Street, between Times Square and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Operated by Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, the hotel has 750 guest units, as well as a conference center with 33 conference rooms. The hotel incorporates a Broadway theater called the Hudson Theatre into its base.
The hotel is composed of two guestroom towers flanking the Hudson Theatre. The original 48-story tower west of the theater was designed by William Derman and Perkins & Will, while the 22-story annex east of the theater was designed by Stonehill & Taylor. The original hotel tower contains a lobby with a passageway connecting two entrances on 44th and 45th Streets. In addition, there is a bar, restaurant, and fitness center in the original tower. The conference center in the lower stories extended into the Hudson Theatre, which in 2017 became a Broadway theater. The 22-story annex is branded as the Millennium Premier New York Times Square. (Full article...) -
Image 2
The Manila Hotel is a 550-room, historic five-star hotel located along Manila Bay in Manila, Philippines. The hotel is the oldest premiere hotel in the Philippines built in 1909 to rival Malacañang Palace, the official residence of the President of the Philippines and was opened on the commemoration of American Independence on July 4, 1912. The hotel complex was built on a reclaimed area of 35,000 square metres (380,000 sq ft) at the northwestern end of Rizal Park along Bonifacio Drive in Ermita. Its penthouse served as the residence of General Douglas MacArthur during his tenure as the Military Advisor of the Philippine Commonwealth from 1935 to 1941.
The hotel used to host the offices of several foreign news organizations, including The New York Times. It has hosted world leaders and celebrities, including authors Ernest Hemingway and James A. Michener; actors Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and John Wayne; publisher Henry Luce; entertainers Sammy Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson and The Beatles; Charles, Prince of Wales (now King Charles III); and U.S. President Bill Clinton. (Full article...) -
Image 3
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...) -
Image 4
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 5
The Hotel Europa was a grand hotel located in Maracaibo, Venezuela. It opened in the late 19th century and served as the filming location for the first Venezuelan film, Un célebre especialista sacando muelas en el gran Hotel Europa, in 1897. Later, it was converted into other hotels with different names, most notably the Hotel Zulia, before being demolished in 1956 for the construction of the Maracaibo municipal building. (Full article...) -
Image 6
The Monbar Hotel attack was carried out by the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), a Spanish state-sponsored death squad, on 25 September 1985 in Bayonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. The targets were four members of the Basque separatist terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), whom the Spanish government believed to be senior figures in the organization, itself proscribed as a terrorist group in Spain and France. All four people were killed, with a fifth person, apparently unconnected to ETA, injured in the shooting. This represented the deadliest attack carried out by the GAL. Although two of the participants were apprehended shortly after the shooting, controversy surrounded the possible involvement of senior figures in the Spanish police.
This attack, and similar attacks carried out by the GAL, became a major issue during the 1996 Spanish general election after a supreme court trial established that the Spanish Interior Ministry had provided clandestine funding for the GAL. Spanish Interior Minister José Barrionuevo and his security chief, Rafael Vera, were jailed for ten years for sanctioning a kidnapping and misappropriation of public funds to finance the group, and the GAL scandal is seen as a key factor in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) losing the election, though more senior figures in the PSOE, such as Felipe Gonzalez, denied knowledge and involvement. (Full article...) -
Image 7
Watson's Hotel (actually Watson's Esplanade Hotel), now known as the Esplanade Mansion, located in the Kala Ghoda area of Mumbai (Bombay), is India's oldest surviving cast iron building. It is probably the oldest surviving multi-level fully cast-iron framed building in the world, being three years earlier than the Menier Chocolate Factory in Noisiel, France, which are both amongst the few ever built. Named after its original owner, John Watson, the cast and wrought iron structure of the building was prefabricated in England, and it was constructed between 1867 and 1869.
The hotel was leased on 26 August 1867 for the terms of 999 years at yearly rent of Rupees 92 and 12 annas to Abdul Haq. It was closed in the 1960s and was later subdivided and partitioned into smaller cubicles that were let out on rent as homes and offices. Neglect of the building has resulted in decay and, despite its listing as a Grade II–A heritage structure, the building is now in a dilapidated state. A documentary film about the building was made in 2019 called The Watson's Hotel. (Full article...) -
Image 8
The Royal Albion Hotel (originally the Albion Hotel) is a 3-star hotel, on the corner of Old Steine and Kings Road in Brighton, England. Built on the site of a house belonging to Richard Russell, a local doctor whose advocacy of sea-bathing and seawater drinking helped to make Brighton fashionable in the 18th century, it has been extended several times, although it experienced a period of rundown and closure in the early 20th century. A fire in 1998 caused serious damage, and the hotel was restored. However, another fire in 2023 seriously damaged the building to the extent that demolition of the western part of the building began on 19 July 2023.
The Classical-style building is in three parts of different sizes and dates but similar appearances. Large pilasters and columns of various orders feature prominently. Amon Henry Wilds, an important and prolific local architect, took the original commission on behalf of promoter John Colbatch. Another local entrepreneur, Harry Preston, restored the hotel to its former high status after buying it in poor condition. The building took on its present three-wing form in 1963. The original part of the building was listed at Grade II* by English Heritage for its architectural and historical importance, and its western extension is listed separately at the lower Grade II. (Full article...) -
Image 9
The Trump International Hotel and Tower is a skyscraper condo-hotel in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The building, named for Donald Trump, was designed by architect Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Bovis Lend Lease built the 100-story structure, which reaches a height of 1,388 feet (423.2 m) including its spire, its roof topping out at 1,171 feet (357 m). It is next to the main branch of the Chicago River, with a view of the entry to Lake Michigan beyond a series of bridges over the river. The building received publicity when the winner of the first season of The Apprentice reality television show, Bill Rancic, chose to manage the construction of the tower over managing a Rancho Palos Verdes based "Trump National Golf Course & Resort" in the Los Angeles metro area.
Trump announced in 2001 that the skyscraper would become the tallest building in the world, but after the September 11 attacks that same year, the architects scaled back the building's plans, and its design underwent several revisions. When topped out in 2009, it became the second-tallest building in the U.S. It surpassed the city's John Hancock Center as the building with the highest residence (apartment or condo) in the world, and briefly held this title until the completion of the Burj Khalifa. (Full article...) -
Image 10
The New York Marriott Marquis is a Marriott hotel on Times Square, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Designed by architect John C. Portman Jr., the hotel is at 1535 Broadway, between 45th and 46th Streets. It has 1,971 rooms and 101,000 sq ft (9,400 m2) of meeting space.
The hotel has two wings, one on 45th Street and one on 46th Street, connected by a podium at ground level. The first two stories contain retail space, while the Marquis Theatre was built within the building's third floor. The hotel's atrium lobby is at the eighth floor and also includes meeting space and restaurants. Thirty-six stories of guestrooms rise above the lobby, overlooking it. The top three stories contain the View, one of New York City's highest restaurants. An architectural feature of the hotel is its concrete elevator core, which consists of a minaret-shaped structure with twelve glass elevator cabs on the exterior. (Full article...) -
Image 11
The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11 attacks) were a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Islamist organisation from Pakistan, carried out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday 26 November and lasted until Saturday 29 November 2008. A total of 175 people died, including nine of the attackers, with more than 300 injured.
Eight of the attacks occurred in South Mumbai: at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Oberoi Trident, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel, the Leopold Cafe, the Cama Hospital, the Nariman House, the Metro Cinema, and in a lane behind the Times of India building and St. Xavier's College. There was also an explosion at Mazagaon, in Mumbai's port area, and in a taxi at Vile Parle. By the early morning of 28 November, all sites except for the Taj Hotel had been secured by the Mumbai Police and security forces. On 29 November, India's National Security Guards (NSG) conducted Operation Black Tornado to flush out the remaining attackers; it culminated in the death of the last remaining attackers at the Taj Hotel and ended the attacks. (Full article...) -
Image 12
The Beverly Hills Hotel, also called the Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows, is located on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California. One of the world's best-known hotels, it is closely associated with Hollywood film stars, rock stars, and celebrities. The hotel has 210 guest rooms and suites and 23 bungalows and the exterior bears the hotel's signature pink and green colors.
The Beverly Hills Hotel was established in May 1912, before the city itself was incorporated. The original owners were Margaret J. Anderson, a wealthy widow, and her son, Stanley S. Anderson, who had been managing the Hollywood Hotel. The original hotel was designed by Pasadena architect Elmer Grey in the Mediterranean Revival style. From 1928 to 1932, the hotel was owned by the Interstate Company. In 1941, Hernando Courtright, the vice president of the Bank of America, purchased the hotel with friends including Irene Dunne, Loretta Young, and Harry Warner. Courtright established the Polo Lounge, which is considered to be one of the premier dining spots in Los Angeles, hosting entertainers ranging from the Rat Pack to Humphrey Bogart and Marlene Dietrich. The hotel was first painted its famous pink color during a 1948 renovation to match that period's country club style. The following year, architect Paul Williams added the Crescent Wing. (Full article...) -
Image 13
The Paramount Hotel (formerly the Century-Paramount Hotel) is a hotel in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb, the hotel is at 235 West 46th Street, between Eighth Avenue and Broadway. The Paramount Hotel is owned by RFR Realty and contains 597 rooms. The hotel building, designed in a Renaissance style, is a New York City designated landmark.
The hotel is 19 stories tall and is H-shaped in arrangement, with light courts to the west and east. The north and south faces of the hotel contain numerous setbacks. The facade is made of brick, stone, and terracotta; most of the decorative detail is concentrated on the south facade, along 46th Street. The hotel building contains a double-height colonnade at street level, as well as several terraces above each of the setbacks. The building has a double-height hip roof flanked by mansard roofs. The basement contains an event venue named Sony Hall, which has historically been used as a nightclub and theater. The double-height lobby's design dates to a 1990 renovation by Philippe Starck. (Full article...) -
Image 14
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...) -
Image 15
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...)
General images - show new batch
-
Image 3The 4 Seasons Motel sign in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin is an excellent example of googie architecture. (from Motel)
-
Image 4Sign on Chicago motel (from Motel)
-
Image 5A typical hotel room with a bed, desk, and television (from Hotel)
-
Image 6Ithaa, the first undersea restaurant at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island resort (from Hotel)
-
Image 7Abandoned Grand West Courts in Chicago, demolished in September 2013 (from Motel)
-
Image 11Motels frequently have large pools, such as the Thunderbird Motel on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon (1973). (from Motel)
-
Image 13The Boody House Hotel in Toledo, Ohio (from Hotel)
-
Image 18Tremont House in Boston, United States, a luxury hotel, the first to provide indoor plumbing (from Hotel)
-
Image 19The Waldorf Astoria New York, the most expensive hotel ever sold, cost US$1.95 billion in 2014. (from Hotel)
-
Image 20On top of the cliff, the Riosol Hotel in Mogán (from Hotel)
-
Image 21The Peninsula New York hotel, located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan (from Hotel)
-
Image 22Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden (from Hotel)
-
Image 23An apartment hotel in Hammond, Indiana (from Apartment hotel)
-
Image 24Wigwam Motel No. 6, a unique motel/motor court on historic Route 66 in Holbrook, Arizona (from Motel)
-
Image 27Holiday Inn's "Great Sign", used until 1982. Some remain in museums. (from Motel)
-
Image 28Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island from Jumeirah Beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge (from Hotel)
-
Image 29The Harrison Hotel, an SRO hotel in Oakland, California. (from Apartment hotel)
-
Image 34The Star Lite Motel in Dilworth, Minnesota is a typical American 1950s L-shaped motel. (from Motel)
Selected articles - load new batch
-
Image 1
The Sarkies Brothers, Martin (1852–1912), Tigran (1861–1912), Aviet (1862–1923), and Arshak (1868–1931), were a group of brothers of Armenian ethnicity best known for founding a chain of luxury hotels throughout Southeast Asia. The brothers were born in Isfahan, Iran. (Full article...) -
Image 2
The Carrington Hotel is a heritage-listed former spa, hotel and power station and now hotel and public bar located at Katoomba Street, Katoomba in the City of Blue Mountains local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by John Kirkpatrick and Bosser in 1882; and by Edward Hewlett Hogben with Goyder Brothers in 1911–13; and built from 1882 to 1913 by F. Drewett in 1882; and by Howie, Brown and Moffit in 1912–13. It is also known as Great Western Hotel. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
The Carrington is the only 19th century grand resort hotel still in use in New South Wales. It also retains much of the fabric of its major phases of development and continues to occupy the commanding position in Katoomba that it has done since its construction. It was built in 1883 by Harry George Rowell, a large hotel owner from Sydney, and was owned by a series of prominent families over the next century. Today it is still operating as a hotel. (Full article...) -
Image 3
The Walled Off Hotel is a boutique hotel in Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine. It was designed by anonymous London-based artist Banksy alongside other creatives. Established in March 2017, and initially set out to only be a temporary exhibition and a word play on the Waldorf hotel chain name, the hotel has since attracted nearly 140,000 visitors, thanks in part to its location opposite the portion of the Israeli West Bank Barrier separating Bethlehem from the holy site of Rachel's Tomb.
Established on 3 March 2017, the hotel is generally considered to be a follow-up to Banksy's 2015 Dismaland project, held for five weeks in Weston-Super-Mare in the South-West of England, making a commentary on life in coastal towns in 21st-century Britain. The reaction to the hotel as a work of art and social intervention has been mixed, especially given its location and subject matter. Critics have argued that such a building profits off tragedy, and is a case of war tourism. On the topic of Banksy's Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, Palestinian artist and activist Rana Bishara criticized the initiative for commodifying the Israeli separation wall while the real wall remains a source of oppression for Palestinians. Bishara also expressed concern over the potential dehumanization of socially disadvantaged areas like the West Bank due to "dark tourism" or "tourism of suffering." Nonetheless, evidence has suggested that the hotel has brought more tourism to areas of the West Bank, in turn raising awareness of the realities of the Palestinians affected by the conflict.
CAMERA UK denounced a painting in the hotel of Jesus Christ with a sniper’s red dot sight on his head as in support of the antisemitic belief of Jewish deicide. (Full article...) -
Image 4
The Westin Peachtree Plaza, Atlanta, is a skyscraper hotel on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, adjacent to the Peachtree Center complex and the former Davison's/Macy's flagship store with 1,073 rooms. At 723.0 ft (220.37 m) and 73 stories, a total building area of 1,196,240 sq ft (111,134 m2) and a 187 ft (57 m) diameter, the tower is the fourth-tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere, and the 30th tallest all-hotel building in the world. (Full article...) -
Image 5
The Penhallow Hotel fire was a suspected arson attack that occurred in Newquay, Cornwall on 18 August 2007. Three people were killed and it was reported as the worst hotel fire in the United Kingdom in nearly 40 years. The hotel was a well-known hotel for holiday makers ranging from families to older residents. It had been built in Island Crescent between 1912 and 1917, and had been altered more than once. The building had a wooden fire escape at the rear, and a central light shaft running from the ground floor up to the roof in the centre of the hotel. Both of these aspects of the building played a dramatic role in the outcome of the fire. Many of those that escaped the fire were elderly holiday makers.
Police at the time concluded that the fire must have been started by an intentional act.
However the inquest returned open verdicts as the coroner said there was insufficient evidence to rule the victims were unlawfully killed. A link has been suggested between the fire and Karen Pedley, a serial arsonist at large in Cornwall at the time.
The remainder of the building was demolished, and the land has since been redeveloped as modern apartments. (Full article...) -
Image 6
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...) -
Image 7Uta Felgner is a German businesswoman. By the end of 2006 she was becoming known as the most high-profile hotel manager in the country. She was the manager of Berlin's luxurious Castle Hotel ("Schlosshotel") in Grunewald during June/July 2006 when all the hotel's 42 rooms and 12 suites were taken over to accommodate the Germany national team while it participated in the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Other well known guests of the hotel while she was its manager had by that time already included Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Henry Kissinger Vitali Klitschko, Uwe Seeler, the King of Spain and the Sultan of Brunei.
She hit the headlines three years later in November 2009 after journalists working for the Berliner Morgenpost (newspaper) revealed that during the 1980s she had operated as an unusually active Informal collaborator in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), working for the country's Ministry for State Security (Stasi / intelligence services). The starting point for the journalists' researches had been an originally secret file on Felgner held in preserved Stasi records, comprising approximately 3,000 pages. (Full article...) -
Image 8
Warm Mineral Springs Motel is a historic 1958 motel building near Warm Mineral Springs, Florida, in Sarasota County. It was designed by Victor Lundy, a member of the Sarasota School of Architecture. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The motel is located at 12597 South Tamiami Trail.
The motel is known for its mushroom champagne glass style roof and glass walls, allowing guests to see the stars. It was selected by the American Institute of Architects for the 1958 Special Awards.
Lundy wrote in a 1958 issue of The Florida Association of Architects: "I was searching for a form that would somehow symbolize the thought of the Fountain of Youth by a plastic flowing shape, that would also echo the organic growing shape of a tree. The answer came in the adoption of a structural system based on using precast concrete hyperbolic paraboloids, 14ft-5in square (from basic motel unit width-requirement, plus necessary overlap) in two heights arranged in a U-shaped plan (the remaining wing will be added shortly). Three of the so called shells were lifted up on higher columns of varying height to form the sign of the motel, as a free-standing piece of sculpture." (Full article...) -
Image 9
Hotel New Netherland (later Hotel Netherland) was located at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, in Manhattan, New York City, New York, in what is now the Upper East Side Historic District. It contained the Sherry's restaurant from 1919 until its demolition in 1927. (Full article...) -
Image 10
Hotels.com, L.P. is a global website for booking hotel rooms online and by telephone. The company has 85 websites in 34 languages, and lists over 325,000 hotels in approximately 19,000 locations. Its inventory includes hotels and B&Bs, and some condos and other types of commercial lodging. Hotels.com was established in 1991 as the Hotel Reservations Network (HRN). In 2001, it became part of Expedia, Inc. and in 2002, changed its name to Hotels.com. The company is operated by Hotels.com LP, a limited partnership subsidiary located in Dallas, Texas, in the United States. (Full article...) -
Image 11
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.
The Astoria Hotel opened in 1897 on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, next door to the Waldorf. It was also designed in the German Renaissance style by Hardenbergh, at a height of about 270 feet (82 m), with sixteen stories, twenty-five public rooms and 550 guest rooms. The ballroom, in the Louis XIV style, has been described as the "pièce de résistance" of the hotel, with a capacity to seat 700 at banquets and 1,200 at concerts. The Astor Dining Room was faithfully reproduced from the original dining room of the mansion which once stood on the site. (Full article...) -
Image 12
Norbreck Castle Hotel is a large seafront hotel on Queens Promenade, in the Norbreck area of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The hotel has 480 bedrooms and 22 conference suites, including the Norcalympia Conference Centre. (Full article...) -
Image 13
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...) -
Image 14Choice Hotels International, Inc. is an American multinational hospitality company based in North Bethesda, Maryland. The company, which is one of the largest hotel chains in the world, owns several hotel brands ranging from upscale to economy. As of the third quarter 2023, Choice Hotels franchised nearly 7,500 hotels, representing nearly 630,000 rooms, in 46 countries and territories. (Full article...)
-
Image 15
The Four Seasons Hotel Moscow is a modern luxury hotel in Manezhnaya Square in the Tverskoy District, central Moscow, Russia. It opened on October 30, 2014, with a facade that replicates the Soviet Hotel Moskva of the 1930s (Russian: Гости́ница «Москва́»), which previously stood on the same location. It is located near Red Square, and in close proximity to the pre-revolutionary City Hall.
It was operated by Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts from its opening until 2022, when the chain ceased managing the hotel due to economic sanctions imposed on Russia resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The hotel continues to use the name, though it is no longer part of the international chain. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that the Pomme d'Or Hotel was used as the Nazi naval headquarters during the occupation of Jersey, and the Union Jack is raised on the hotel balcony every year to celebrate Jersey's liberation?
- ... that to promote the Paramount Hotel, its operator mailed out apples?
- ... that the Hotel Brexton in Baltimore was once home to Wallis Simpson, the American divorcée who married Edward VIII?
- ... that The Mutiny Hotel was described as a haven for "cocaine cowboys"?
- ... that according to Jimmy Carter, "more of [Georgia's] business was probably conducted in the Henry Grady than in the state capitol"?
- ... that the New Yorker Hotel once had the largest private power plant in the United States?
- ... that New York City's Lexington Hotel banned tipping when it opened?
- ... that Plaza Hotel Curaçao, the tallest building in Curaçao, is falling apart?
Related portals
WikiProjects
List articles
- Historic Hotels of America
- List of largest hotels
- List of largest hotels in Europe
- List of tallest hotels
- List of casino hotels
- List of chained-brand hotels
- List of defunct hotel chains
- List of hotels in the Caribbean
- List of caravanserais
- Lists of hotels
- List of motels
- Lists of hotels by country (category page)
- Lists of hotels by city (category page)
Topics
|
|
Categories
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
More portals
- All manually maintained portal pages
- Portals with triaged subpages from July 2022
- All portals with triaged subpages
- Portals with named maintainer
- Automated article-slideshow portals with 41–50 articles in article list
- Automated article-slideshow portals with 201–500 articles in article list
- Portals needing placement of incoming links