



A hotel, like a hotel in cotswolds, is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis.
The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms and air conditioning or climate control.
Additional common features found in hotel rooms are a telephone, an alarm clock, a television, a safe, a mini-bar with snack foods and drinks, and facilities for making tea and coffee.
Luxury features include bathrobes and slippers, a pillow menu, twin-sink vanities, and jacuzzi bathtubs.
Larger hotels may provide additional guest facilities such as a restaurant, swimming pool, fitness center, business center, childcare, conference facilities 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 hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement.
In the United Kingdom, a hotel is required by law to serve food and drinks to all guests within certain stated hours.
In Japan, capsule hotels provide a minimized amount of room space and shared facilities.
The word hotel is derived from the French hotel (coming from hote meaning host), which referred to a French version of a townhouse or any other building seeing frequent visitors, rather than a place offering accommodation.
In contemporary French usage, hotel now has the same meaning as the English term, and hotel particulier is used for the old meaning.
The French spelling, with the circumflex, was also used in English, but is now rare.
The circumflex replaces the 's' found in the earlier hostel spelling, which over time took on a new, but closely related meaning.
Grammatically, hotels usually take the definite article – hence "The Astoria Hotel" or simply "The Astoria.
" Hotel operations in a hotel vary in size, function, and cost.
Most hotels and major hospitality companies that operate hotels have set widely accepted industry standards to classify hotel types.
General categories include the following; * Upscale Luxury.
o Examples include Conrad Hotels, InterContinental Hotels, Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Dorchester Collection,and JW Marriott Hotels.
* Full Service.
o Examples include Hilton, Marriott, Hotel Indigo, Doubletree, and Hyatt.
* Select Service.
o Examples include Holiday Inn, Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn.
* Limited Service.
o Examples include Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Fairfield Inn, Days Inn, and La Quinta Inns & Suites.
* Extended Stay.
o Examples include Staybridge Suites, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Residence Inn by Marriott, and Extended Stay Hotels.
* Timeshare.
o Examples include Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Marriott Vacation Club International, Westgate Resorts, and Disney Vacation Club.
* Destination Club.
Hotel management is a significant career.
Larger hotels may operate with an extensive management structure consisting of a General Manager which serves as the head executive, department heads that oversee various departments, middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors.
Degree programs such as hospitality management studies, a business degree, and/or certification programs prepare hotel managers for industry practice.
Some hotels, like a hotel in cotswolds, 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.
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).
Many hotels can be considered destinations in themselves, by dint of unusual features of the lodging or its immediate environment: Boutique hotels are typically hotels like with a unique environment.
Some hotels are built with living trees as structural elements, for example the Costa Rica Tree House in the Gandoca-Manzanillo 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.
In Nax Mont-Noble, a little ski resort situated on 1300 metres in the Swiss Alps, construction for the Maya Guesthouse will start in September 2011.
It will be the first hotel in Europe built entirely with straw bales.
Due to the isolation values of the walls it will need no heating.
The Null Stern Hotel in Teufen, Appenzellerland, Switzerland and the Concrete Mushrooms in Albaniaare former nuclear bunkers transformed into hotels.
Shoe hotels are hotels built into a giant shoe.
The idea was inspired by the "Old Woman who lived in a shoe" myth.
The largest such hotel is currently in Hokkaido, Japan.
The most popular shoe hotels are modelled after a woman's platform dancing shoe.
The Cuevas Pedro Antonio de AlarcOn (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.
Capsule hotels are a type of economical hotel that are found in Japan, where people sleep in stacks of rectangular containers.
The Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, and the Hotel de Glace in Duschenay, Canada, melt every spring and are rebuilt each winter; 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.
Garden hotels, famous for their gardens before they became hotels, include Gravetye Manor, the home of garden designer William Robinson, and Cliveden, designed by Charles Barry with a rose garden by Geoffrey Jellicoe.
Some hotels have accommodation underwater, such as Utter Inn in Lake Malaren, Sweden.
Hydropolis, project cancelled 2004 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.
Other unusual hotels - RMS Queen Mary, Long Beach, California, United States.
* 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 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 Jailhotel Lowengraben in Lucerne, Switzerland is a converted prison now used as a hotel.
* The Luxor, a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States is unusual due to its pyramidal structure.
* The Liberty Hotel in Boston, used to be the Charles Street Jail.
* Built in Scotland and completed in 1936, The former ocean liner RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, United States uses its first-class staterooms as a hotel, after retiring in 1967 from Transatlantic service.
* There are several hotels throughout the world built into converted airliners.
Some hotels are built specifically to create a captive trade, example at casinos and holiday resorts.
Though of course 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.
In Las Vegas there is a tradition of one-upmanship with luxurious and extravagant hotels in a concentrated area known as the Las Vegas Strip.
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.
In Europe Center Parcs might be considered a chain of resort hotels, since the sites are largely man-made (though set in natural surroundings such as country parks) with captive trade, whereas holiday camps such as Butlins and Pontin's are probably not considered as resort hotels, since they are set at traditional holiday destinations which existed before the camps.
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 also in London is the Chiltern Court Hotel above Baker Street tube station and Canada's grand railway hotels.
They are or were mostly, but not exclusively, used by those travelling by rail.
A motel (motor hotel) is a hotel like which is for a short stay, usually for a night, for motorists on long journeys.
It has direct access from the room to the vehicle (for example a central parking lot around which the buildings are set), and is built conveniently close to major roads and intersections.
In 2006, Guinness World Records listed the First World Hotel in Genting Highlands, Malaysia as the world's largest hotel with a total of 6,118 rooms.
Similarly, the Venetian Palazzo Complex, in Las Vegas, has the most number of rooms.
It has 7,117 rooms followed by MGM Grand Hotel, which contains 6,852 rooms.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest hotel like still in operation is the Hoshi Ryokan, in the Awazu Onsen area of Komatsu, Japan which opened in 718.
The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong is the tallest building used exclusively as a hotel.
Located on the top of Hong Kong's tallest building, the 488 meter tall International Commerce Centre.
Some hotels sell individual rooms to investors.
Timeshare is an example of this kind of investment.
The buyer is allowed to stay in the room without charge or at a reduced rate for a given number of days each year.
The investor is paid a share of the takings for the room.
Rooms can be sold on a leasehold basis, sometimes on a 999 year lease.
Room owners are free to sell at any time.
A number of public figures have notably chosen to take up semi-permanent or permanent residence in hotels.
* Actor Richard Harris lived at the Savoy Hotel while in London.
Hotel archivist Susan Scott recounts an anecdote that when he was being taken out of the building on a stretcher shortly before his death he raised his hand and told the diners "it was the food.
" * Inventor Nikola Tesla lived the last 10 years of his life at the New Yorker Hotel until 1943 when he died in the hotel room.
* Millionaire Howard Hughes lived his last few years in a Las Vegas hotel.
* Egyptian actor Ahmad Zaki lived his last 15 years in Ramses Hilton Hotel – Cairo.
* Larry Fine (of the Three Stooges) and his family lived in hotels, due to his extravagant spending habits and his wife's dislike for housekeeping.
They first lived in the President Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where his daughter Phyllis was raised, then the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood.
Not until the late 1940s did Larry buy a home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, California.
* General Douglas McArthur lived his last 14 years in the penthouse of the Waldorf Towers, a part of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
* American actress Elaine Stritch lived in the Savoy Hotel in London for over a decade.
* Fashion designer Coco Chanel lived in the Hotel Ritz Paris on and off for more than 30 years.
* Vladimir Nabokov and his wife Vera lived in the Montreux Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland from 1961 until his death in 1977.
* British entrepreneur Jack Lyons lived in the Hotel Mirador Kempinski in Switzerland for several years until his death in 2008.
Hotels like a hotel in cotswolds have been used as the settings for television programmes such as the British situation comedies Fawlty Towers and I'm Alan Partridge, the British soap opera Crossroads, and in films such as the Bates Motel in Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho and The Dolphin Hotel in 1408, a short story by Stephen King which was adapted into a 2007 film.
Another is Tipton Hotel, a fictitious hotel in Disney's "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody".
When the show later became a spinoff into "The Suite Life on Deck," the Tipton evolved into the SS Tipton, run by the same company.
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The spine of the Cotswolds runs south west to north east through six counties, particularly Gloucestershire, west Oxfordshire, and south western Warwickshire.
The northern and western edges of the Cotswolds are marked by steep escarpments down to the Severn valley and the Warwickshire Avon.
This escarpment or scarp feature, sometimes called the Cotswold Edge, is a result of the uplifting (tilting) of the limestone layer, exposing its broken edge This is a cuesta, in geological terms.
The dip slope is to the south east.
On the eastern boundary lies the city of Oxford and on the west is Stroud.
To the south-east the upper reaches of the Thames Valley and towns such as Lechlade, Tetbury and Fairford are often considered to mark the limit of this region.
To the south the Cotswolds, with the characteristic uplift of the Cotswold Edge, reach beyond Bath, and towns such as Chipping Sodbury and Marshfield share elements of Cotswold character.
The area is characterised by attractive small towns and villages built of the underlying Cotswold stone (a yellow oolitic limestone).
This limestone is rich in fossils, in particular fossilised sea urchins.
In the Middle Ages the wool trade made the Cotswolds prosperous.
Some of this money was put into the building of churches so the area has a number of large handsome Cotswold stone "wool churches".
The area remains affluent and has attracted wealthy people who own second homes in the area or have chosen to retire there.
Cotswold towns include Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Cirencester, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Stroud and Winchcombe.
The town of Chipping Campden is notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts movement, founded by William Morris at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
William Morris lived occasionally in Broadway Tower a folly now part of a country park.
Chipping Campden is also known for the annual Cotswold Olimpick Games, a celebration of sports and games dating back to the early 17th century.
The Cotswolds were designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1966, with an expansion on 21 December 1990 to 1,990 square kilometres (768 sq mi).
In 1991, all AONBs were measured again using modern methods.
The official area of the Cotswolds AONB increased to 2,038 square kilometres (787 sq mi).
In 2000, the government confirmed that AONBs had the same landscape quality and status as National Parks.
The Cotswolds AONB, which is the largest in England and Wales, stretches from the border regions of South Warwickshire and Worcestershire, through West Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire and takes in parts of Wiltshire, and Bath and North East Somerset in the South.
Gloucestershire County Council is responsible for 63 per cent of the AONB.
The Cotswolds Conservation Board is the organisation that exists to conserve and enhance the AONB.
Established in 2004, the board carries out a range of work from securing funding for 'on the ground' conservation projects to providing a strategic overview of the area for key decision makers, such as planning officials.
The board is an independent organisation funded by Natural England and the 17 local authorities that sit within the AONB.
While the beauty of the Cotswold AONB is intertwined with the villages that seem to almost grow out of the landscape, the Cotswolds were primarily designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty for the rare limestone grassland habitats as well as the old growth beech woodlands that typify the area.
These habitat areas are also the last refuge for many other flora and fauna with some so endangered they are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
Cleeve Hill, and its associated commons, is a fine example of a limestone grassland and it is one of the few locations where the Duke of Burgundy butterfly can still be found in abundance.
The uniqueness and value of the Cotswolds is engendered in the fact that five European Special Areas of Conservation, three National Nature Reserves and over 80 Sites of Special Scientific Interest are contained within the Cotswold AONB.
The Cotswold Voluntary Wardens Service, now part of the Cotswolds Conservation Board, was established in 1968 to help conserve and enhance the area and now has over 300 wardens.
The Cotswold Way is a long-distance footpath, approximately 103 miles (166 km) long, running the length of the AONB mainly on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment with views over the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham.
The Cotswolds is an area of England about the size of greater Tokyo.
Popular with both the English themselves and visitors from all over the world,the Cotswolds are well-known for gentle hillsides (‘wolds’), sleepy villages and for being so ‘typically English’.
There are famous cities such as Bath, well-known beautiful towns like Cheltenham and hundreds of delightful villages such as Burford and Castle Combe.
Above all, the local honey-coloured limestone, used for everything from the stone floors in the houses to the tiles on the roof, has ensured that the area has a magical uniformity of architecture.
You will see ‘Drystone walls’ everywhere in the fields.
Many were built in the 18th and 19th centuries, a matter of considerable skill as there is no cement to hold the walls together.
They represent an important historical landscape and a major conservation feature – and are of course still used by farmers to enclose sheep and cattle.
During the 13-15th centuries, the medieval period, the native Cotswold sheep were famous throughout Europe for their heavy fleeces and high quality of wool.
Cotswold wool commanded a high price and the wealth generated by the wool trade enabled wealthy traders to leave their mark by building fine houses and wonderful churches, known as “wool churches”.
Even today, the sight of sheep on the hillside is still one of the classic Cotswold images.
Not all villages are well known, and today many still hold their secrets.
Amongst the treasures to be found are perhaps a hidden village off the beaten track, perhaps Painswick, Biddestone, Winchcombe or Woodstock, or an unspoilt historic church, such as at Northleach often called the “Cathedral of the Cotswolds” – open the church door and you will discover a hidden world of history.
Today, the larger market towns and villages of the Cotswolds are famous for their shops, such as Stow-on-the-Wold, Cirencester, Chipping Norton and Tetbury.
The World Heritage Site of Bath and the beautiful countryside surrounding it is unique and unforgettable.
This comfortably sized city is packed with places to visit.
Bath's rich diversity of museums, galleries, gardens and attractions are all within easy distance of each other.
Attractions within 5miles · The Roman Baths · Bath Abbey · The Museum of Costume · Jane Austen Centre · The Building of Bath Museum · The Victoria Art Gallery and Holburne Museum · Thermae Bath Spa · And many more Located at the head of the beautiful Evenlode valley, Moreton is a thriving market town dating back 1000 years to the Saxon era.
Its broad High Street is lined with elegant 17th and 18th Century buildings, among them the White Hart Royal, a former manor house in which King Charles I sheltered during the Civil War.
Every Tuesday Moreton-in-Marsh hosts the largest open-air street market in the Cotswolds.
It is also the venue for a successful one-day agricultural show held on the first Saturday in September - see .
Attractions within 5miles · Market in centre (Tuesdays) · Batsford Arboretum (2km) · Bourton House Garden (2km) · Cotswold Falconry Centre (2km) · Wellington Aviation Museum (centre) · Mill Dene Garden (5km) Set in the beautiful rural Warwickshire countryside, on the banks of the river Avon, Stratford is a market town dating back to medieval times.
Stratford is today most famous as the birthplace of the Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare.
It also has much to offer the gourmet, with a wide variety of well-priced restaurants and bars offering local and international cuisine.
The Royal Shakespeare Company has three uniquely different theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon - see Set in the beautiful rural Warwickshire countryside, on the banks of the river Avon, Stratford is a market town dating back to medieval times.
Stratford is today most famous as the birthplace of the Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare.
It also has much to offer the gourmet, with a wide variety of well-priced restaurants and bars offering local and international cuisine.
The Royal Shakespeare Company has three uniquely different theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Attractions within 5miles · Shakespeare's Birthplace.
· Hall's Croft.
· Anne Hathaway's Cottage.
· Nash's House / New Place.
· Mary Arden's House.
· Three Royal Shakespeare Company theatres.
· The Gallery (contemporary art gallery).
· Warwick Castle (15 miles).
Tewkesbury lies at the heart of the Severn Vale, where the River Severn meets the Avon.
This delightful medieval town is steeped in history, with its narrow alleyways, black and white timber framed buildings and the beautiful 12th century abbey, which dominates the town.
Annual events include the Food and Drink Festival and the Spring Arts Festival.
Attractions within 5miles · Tewkesbury Abbey.
· John Moore Countryside Museum.
· Tewkesbury Museum.
· Old Baptist Chapel, Tewkesbury.
· River Cruises.
· Odda’s Chapel, Deerhurst.
Built on steep slopes at the junction of five valleys, this busy market town of Stroud has retained considerable character despite the industrialisation in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
At the height of its prosperity there were at least 150 cloth mills in the valleys centred upon Stroud.
Many light industries have replaced most of these, and Stroud and its surrounding area continues to thrive, and is a centre for artists and crafts people.
Attractions within 5miles · Museum in the Park.
· Gloucestershire Guild Gallery (4km).
· Woodchester Mansion (4km).
· Painswick Rococo Garden (4.
5 km).
Set on a hill, circled by the river Avon, the imposing Norman Abbey dominates the skyline.
The town flourished as a weaving centre from the 15th century and became known for its fine silk and lace.
The fine 15th century Market Cross, an Old Courtroom, narrow medieval streets and a river walk, show hints of a rich history dating back a thousand years.
Attractions within 5miles · Malmesbury Abbey.
· Abbey House Gardens.
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