Hotels

A Brief Introduction to Boutique Hotels?

Story Published on May 26, 2008 ⋅  Email this Story ⋅  Print this Story ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

The travel industry is huge and there are many huge organizations involved which own numerous hotels with one or more properties in most of the world’s important cities such as London in Great Britain. However there are also a great many individuals and families who run small hotels, guest houses or other accommodation. It is often the case that many of us choose to stay in such accommodation rather than one of the well known, and rather more expensive, hotels which often seem very much the same whichever city you are in. Over the last few decades it has become common for accommodation to be advertised as a “boutique hotel” and this article examines exactly what it is that makes it “boutique”.

As you may have gathered from the above paragraph boutique hotels are usually far more intimate than larger establishments. A boutique hotel is usually one which has a great deal of character offering something a little out of the ordinary. Originating in North America these types of hotels are often smaller, usually privately run, luxurious hotels offering a highly personalized service not often found in the, much larger, branded hotels and motels.

Roughly three decades ago the culture and style of society was rather different and many liked to fashion a specific lifestyle for themselves. More and more people began to demand hotel accommodation which would fit more closely to their chosen lifestyle. The hotels which where redesigned to meet this demand became known as design hotels or lifestyle hotels.

While there are several boutique hotels which claim to be the very first two seem to have the strongest. Morgans Hotel in New York and San Francisco’s hotel Vintage Court. Morgans Hotel (owned by Ian Schrager) opened in 1984 having been designed by Andre Putman but Vintage Court, owned by Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group Inc. which owns many boutique hotels, opened in 1983.

One of the most interesting aspects of boutique hotels is the way in which they are usually themed. Rather than concentrate on all the modern bells and whistles, often available in hotels owned by the larger chains, boutique hotels offer personality and personal service. For example the Church Street Hotel in London, a Spanish-American Boutique hotel, is decorated in a Cubano style with mexican tile work which has been hand painted with numerous items of art and furnished with excellent Colonialist furniture.

London, like many of the world’s largest cities, has a large number of boutique hotels. Best Western have many hotels in the city including the boutique hotel, Shaftesbury Kensington, which has recently been refurbished and offers a huge range of services including broadband Internet access from all rooms. The hotel has all of the amenities of the largest hotels, such as bars, restaurants, conference facilities and a fitness room. The sudden and rapid growth in interest in boutique hotels has led to a little confusion over the true definition of the term and to blur things a little more several large corporations have established boutique hotels to grab a little of this expanding market.

If you like to boast a little, or if you like to impress friends or you just like to make interesting conversation then you might want to consider staying in the London boutique hotel Red Carnation, 41 Hotel at 41 Buckingham Palace Road. Yes this wonderful hotel is within minutes of the Palace itself and just opposite Buckingham Palace’s Royal Mews. In such an excellent position it is little wonder that the hotel is extremely popular.

While the word boutique may well be used extensively now and there are usually many to choose from the very nature of them dictates that each will be considerably different than the other. They seem to be appearing virtually everywhere these days and there is even a boutique hotel on the Isle of Harris in the extremely remote Outer Hebrides. Now that you have a greater understanding of what makes a boutique a hotel boutique then you may wish to consider booking into one next time you visit somewhere new.

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