Saturday, June 12, 2010

Hotel, Where Does The Name Come From?

Hotel, an organization which makes paid accommodation available, generally on a temporary basis. Hotels habitually provide numerous guest services, for example, a restaurant, a childcare or a swimming pool. A number of hotels contain meeting rooms and conference facilities and encourage people to arrange get-togethers and conventions at their own place. No rigid rule of differentiating hotels from other motels is there, though, a Motel clearly suggests that it is intended for motorists. It simply means that it is nothing but a hotel but with first-class access to the highway network. Characteristically, motel means a hotel, made suitable for inhabitants who, for no matter what private reason, wish not to be unable to have rapid right to use from the outer world to the rooms of the hotel without going by the receptionist’s scrutiny or associate guests.

The word also refers to a bar or a pub in Australia. Even in the United Kingdom, many bars, having hotel in their names, do not provide lodging or foodstuff. In India, hotel refers to restaurant as the better restaurants were located near to good hotels.The word Hotel originated from a French word, hộtel. It refers to a French edition of a townhouse but not a building where accommodation is offered. Accommodating people in dedicated buildings has immense antiquity and people of various customs started practicing it. Hoshi Ryokan, a Japanese hotel, which was established in the year 717, is the oldest hotel of the world. Basic lodging of a room with no more than one bed, one cupboard, one small table and one washstand was substituted by modern rooms having en-suite bathrooms, telephones, a television, an alarm clock, broadband connection of internet etc. Drink and food are delivered by a mini bar. Mini-bar is a refrigerator which contains drinks and snacks, coffee and tea preparing facilities etc.

The quality and cost of hotels are normally indicative of the variety of services accessible. As tourism increased immensely all through the globe throughout the preceding decade, standards of the smaller establishment has developed by a huge margin now. Rating system is now brought in for greater comparability. Famous hotels of recent times are, Schloss Cecilienhof in Germany, Waldorf Astoria, Hotel Chelsea in USA, Singapore’s Raffles Hotel, Hotel Sacher in Austria, Russia’s Grand Hotel Europe, Ritz Hotel in UK etc.

Many hotels are termed as unusual hotels, such as, Treehouse hotels like Ariau Towers, Cave hotels like Desert cave hotel, Capsules hotels in Japan, Ice hotel in Sweden, Snow hotels like Mammut in Finland, Garden Hotels, Underwater hotels, Library hotel, Boat hotel etc. Dubai’s Burj al-Arab, world’s tallest hotel is 321 meters high. However, world’s largest hotel is situated at Las Vegas and its name is MGM Grand Las Vegas. The oldest hotel, still operating, is the Hoshi Rokyan in Japan. A grouping or collection of hotels under an identifiable brand name, managed by an organization is called a hotel chain.

A hotel can be of from one star to seven stars. The only seven star hotel, dream of millions of people, is located at Dubai.

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Cheap London Hotel

Online hotel reservation allows you to reserve a hotel in advance to virtually any destination worldwide. There are many quality websites on the Internet that offer online hotel reservation facilities to worldwide destinations. Most of these websites also offer special hotel discount rates, virtual hotel tours, a list of hotel room facilities, hotel reservation tips and a lot more service to make your choice easier.

Why reserve hotels online?

There are many benefits of reserving your hotel online. Some of them are as follows:

• Most online hotel reservation websites allow you to take a virtual tour of discount luxury hotels so that can help you to decide better.

• As online reservation websites have hundreds of hotel listings, you get a chance to compare between different discount hotel rates, hotel amenities and fix up on the best deal.

• You can get direct access to any hotel discounts, special offers or hotel events and cash-in on them.

• Online hotel reservations are much faster than conventional methods allowing you to book a hotel room way in advance.

• Many online reservation websites give you information regarding discount hotels and combination deals allowing you to save up on money.

• You can get access to hotel brochures, discount coupons, festive offers and more.

• Most hotels offer 'cancellation policies' on your hotel reservations that give you flexibility.

Things to Check before/after hotel reservation

• Check discounted hotel rates for extra person, included breakfast, parking facilities, hotel shuttle services, pet policies etc.

• Check and carefully read the cancellation policy the hotel offers

• Check for special interest rates if any

• Check if the hotel offers special customer requests (customer request facility allows you to book a room of your choice)

• Check if the room rate is per person or per night

• Check for status of your reservation through mails/websites and enquire if delayed

• Make sure your hotel reservation is confirmed (generally confirmation should take place in 2 -5 hours for real time reservations)

It is no longer necessary to pay extravagant prices. Deals are found daily, whether it's an overage of seats on a specific airline, or unreserved room in major hotels; there is a reasonable travel package with your budget in mind.

Travel agents of course, will be able to find some great deals, but when the seasoned traveler makes use of the Internet, it opens up a whole new selection of travel deals. While the prices are unrivalled at times, there are some steps that need to be taken to ensure that you are in fact, getting not only a good travel package, but also, a great one! All of these will package airfare, hotel, car, and even schedule major attractions or entertainment at the click of a button. The prices are often much lower than an agencies advertised package price, and are just as reliable. Cruise travel packages under the budget category have become as popular as air travel and are also offered through Internet travel companies.

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Great Hotel Marketing Starts with Hotel Website Design

You may have the most wonderful hotel in the world, with gorgeous landscaping, comfortable rooms, and impeccable service, but if guests don't know about it, your occupancy rates will be a continual disappointment. In this day and age, the most critical component of hotel marketing is great hotel website design.

Why Hotel Website Design?

The numbers say it all. During 2007, almost a third of all hotel revenues will be generated by online channels. Moreover, over half of your target audience's decision-making is influenced by the Internet. Over a third of hotel guests choose their hotel based on online research, but book through another channel. The remainder researched their choices through an Internet portal, but then tried to book directly with the travel provider.

Without great hotel web site design, it's as if you printed 1,000 beautiful, four-color, ten-page brochures that stunningly captured the unique nature of your hotel at ten dollars apiece, and then locked them away in a cupboard. How effective would they be? The "look and feel" is vitally important in motivating visitors to explore your hotel product, and in guiding them to buy, but without the right technology, site structure, and navigation methods, you will only have marginal online revenues.

Hotel Search Engine Optimization

Even if you have a wonderful hotel web site design, if no one can find your website when they are searching online for that "luxury San Diego hotel," that "romantic B&B outside Paris," or that "adventure scuba holiday in the Maldives," it's as though you didn't have a website at all.

The way that potential guests will find your hotel web site is through search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is both an art and a science - and shouldn't be left to amateurs. Search engine optimization techniques will enable your hotel website to be returned high in the rankings of search engine results - a critical element of effective online hotel marketing.

Factors to Consider

When choosing a marketing company for your hotel website design, make sure that they understand and meet these goals:

* Generating qualified, quality visitor traffic
* Motivating visitors to delve deeper into your hotel website
* Converting visitors into online hotel revenues

Too often, hotel websites are developed in reverse, placing the emphasis on design rather than on generating website traffic. The key is to balance traffic generation effectiveness, the site's "look and feel," and conversion techniques to produce a hotel web site that looks great, gets plenty of traffic that converts into bookings.

Find a Hotel Website Design Company

Today, Internet design and marketing companies have specializations. In order to get the best return on investment, it's best to choose a website design company that specializes in hotel website design. Make sure that their approach adheres to the following guidelines - otherwise, keep shopping. The company should:

* Identify your visitors' expectations and intentions
* Work with you to clarify your own objectives
* Develop a hotel website revenue conversion strategy
* Determine site components that satisfy both design and search engine optimization goals
* Map our "click paths" that will lead to conversion

Your hotel website design and search engine optimization are the two keys to generating the kind of traffic that will keep your occupancy rates in the stratosphere!

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