What are Boutique Hotels?

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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”.

“Boutique hotels” originated in North America and such hotels are usually small privately run hotels with a strong and noticeable character offering a most excellent personalized service which is not commonly experienced in the larger, well known, hotel and motel chains.

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.

There are a number of hotels which claim that they were the first hotel be become a boutique hotel. One such hotel is the Morgans Hotel in New York which was owned by a famous hotelier Ian Schrager. Schrager had commissioned Andre Putman to design the hotel which opened in 1984 and is usually credited as being the very first of the many boutique hotels we see today. Another hotel with a reasonable claim to the title is the Vintage Court hotel in San Francisco (part of the Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group Inc.) which opened in 1983.

While many of the large hotel chains have a distinctive corporate image to uphold, which often translates into their hotels being rather similar, boutique hotels are not so restricted. In fact such hotels more often aim to be as different as possible and many owners choose to design their hotel around a specific theme or style. If you are visiting the city of London and you appreciate the style of Spanish-Americans then you will find the Church Street Hotel very much to your liking. It’s interiors are richly decorated in a Cubano style with matching art work and furnished in superb 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.

One of the best boutique hotels in London is found opposite the Royal Mews of Buckingham Palace at 41 Buckingham Palace Road. The Red Carnation, 41 Hotel is only a few minutes walk from many of London’s finest tourist attractions and only a short distance from Buckingham Palace itself. If you are visiting London you may want to stay here if only to be able to say to friends that you stayed at that address.

It would seem that the term “boutique hotel” is appearing here there and everywhere nowadays, even the Isle of Harris (an extremely remote island off Scotland) has a boutique hotel opening soon. However it really doesn’t matter how many appear as each is entirely unique by definition. If you are planning a short city break or vacation soon why not consider trying out a boutique hotel, I am certain that you will find one to match your lifestyle.