Portal:Hotels
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 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 -
Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
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 term of 999 years at a 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...)- The Briarcliff Lodge was a luxury resort in the village of Briarcliff Manor, New York, United States. It was a notable example of Tudor Revival architecture, and was one of the largest wooden structures in the United States. It was also the first hotel in Westchester County.
Walter William Law had it built on his estate, and the Law family owned it until 1937. When the lodge opened in 1902, it was one of the largest resort hotels in the world. The lodge hosted presidents, royalty, and celebrities, and was the scene of numerous memorable occasions for visitors and local residents who attended weddings, receptions, and dances in the ballroom and dining room. For a long time, the lodge was situated among other businesses of Walter Law, including the Briarcliff Farms and Briarcliff Table Water Company. (Full article...)
The Whitebrook, formerly known as The Crown at Whitebrook, is a restaurant with rooms in Whitebrook, 6 miles (9.7 km) south-south-east of Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales, near the River Wye and the border with England. The building is thought to date from the 17th century and by the 19th century it was used as a roadside inn. Its restaurant was run by Chef Patron James Sommerin until 2013; it gained a Michelin star in 2007. It contains eight double rooms and a 2-acre (0.81 ha) garden.
On 7 March 2013, it closed because of financial difficulties; at the time it had the longest held Michelin star in Wales. Critics praised the food under Sommerin, but have criticised the difficulty in finding the restaurant. It re-opened in October 2013 under new chef and owner Chris Harrod, and regained the Michelin star in 2014. Harrod serves a menu using locally produced meat and vegetables along with foraged ingredients such as charlock, hedge bedstraw and pennywort. (Full article...)- Claudius Charles Philippe, also known as Philippe of the Waldorf or The Host of the Waldorf, (10 December 1910—24 December 1978) was a British-born French-American restaurateur, catering director, hotelier and businessman, who was the hotel banquet manager of the prestigious Waldorf Astoria New York hotel in the 1940s and 1950s. From 1961 until 1963 he worked as executive vice president of Loews Hotels, and was responsible for the planning and building of six new New York hotels.
Philippe is best remembered for founding the April in Paris Ball at the Waldorf Astoria in 1951, which he ran with Elsa Maxwell until his sacking from the hotel in 1959. The balls were major events in the US socialite calendar, and raised millions of dollars for American and French charities over the 28 years of its existence. His Lucullus Circle dinners also attracted some of the wealthiest businessmen of the day to feast on six to eight course meals. During his career at the Waldorf Astoria it has been estimated that Philippe was responsible for his clients spending $150 million alone on banquets, which led him to be referred to as "one of the truly great men this industry has ever produced" by George Lang. (Full article...)
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 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 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...)
The Blackstone Hotel is a historic 290-foot (88 m) 21-story hotel on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Balbo Drive in the Michigan Boulevard Historic District in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Built between 1908 and 1910, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Blackstone is famous for hosting celebrity guests, including numerous U.S. presidents, for which it was known as the "Hotel of Presidents" for much of the 20th century, and for contributing the term "smoke-filled room" to political parlance. (Full article...)
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, United States. 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 movie 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 floors house residential condominiums. (Full article...)
Lotte New York Palace Hotel is a luxury hotel in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, at the corner of 50th Street and Madison Avenue. It was originally developed between 1977 and 1980 by Harry Helmsley. The hotel consists of a portion of the Villard Houses, built in the 1880s by McKim, Mead & White, which are New York City designated landmarks and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also includes a 51-story skyscraper designed by Emery Roth & Sons and completed in 1980.
The Villard Houses, arranged in a U-shaped plan, consist of three wings surrounding a central courtyard on the east side of Madison Avenue. The houses' center wing serves as a lobby, while the south wing serves as an event space. Behind the Villard Houses to the east is the modern skyscraper addition. As of 2021[update], the hotel has 909 rooms and suites. The top floors of the skyscraper are known as the Towers, which consist of 176 luxury units. Among the units in the Towers are four ornate triplex suites, each with their own decorations, as well as four other specialty suites. (Full article...)
John Plankinton (March 11, 1820 – March 29, 1891) was an American businessman. He is noted for expansive real estate developments in Milwaukee, including the luxurious Plankinton House Hotel designed as an upscale residence for the wealthy. He was involved with railroading and banking. The Plankinton Bank he developed became the leading bank of Milwaukee in his lifetime. He was involved in the development of the Milwaukee City Railroad Company, an electric railway.
Plankinton was a Milwaukee-based meatpacking industrialist. He started this trade as a butcher for his general store operating in the center part of the city. He was the city's leading meat packer after his first year in the grocery business. He expanded this industry and eventually became acquainted with the meatpacking industrialist Philip D. Armour forming a company with him that lasted for 20 years. (Full article...)
The Virgin Hotels Chicago (formerly Old Dearborn Bank Building or 203 North Wabash Avenue) is a historic building in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, that has been converted from use as an office building to use as a hotel run via a mobile app-based business model. The 250-room hotel was the first of Richard Branson's Virgin Hotels brand boutique hotels geared toward the female business traveller. (Full article...)
The Sands Hotel and Casino was a historic hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States, that operated from 1952 to 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, with a prominent 56-foot (17 m) high sign, the Sands was the seventh resort to open on the Strip. During its heyday, it hosted many famous entertainers of the day, most notably the Rat Pack and Jerry Lewis.
The hotel was established in 1952 by Mack Kufferman, who bought the LaRue Restaurant which had opened a year earlier. The hotel was opened on December 15, 1952, as a casino and hotel with 200 rooms. The hotel rooms were divided into four two-story motel wings, each with fifty rooms, and named after famous race tracks. Crime bosses such as Doc Stacher and Meyer Lansky acquired shares in the hotel and attracted Frank Sinatra, who made his performing debut at Sands in October 1953. Sinatra later bought a share in the hotel himself. In 1960, the classic caper film Ocean's 11 was shot at the hotel, and it subsequently attained iconic status, with regular performances by Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr., Red Skelton and others in the hotel's world-renowned Copa Room. (Full article...)
The Beverly Hills Hotel, also called the Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows,[full citation needed] 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, a 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...)
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 has 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...)
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte (/dɔɪliː kɑːrt/ ; 3 May 1844 – 3 April 1901) was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer, and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era. He built two of London's theatres and a hotel empire, while also establishing an opera company that ran continuously for over a hundred years and a management agency representing some of the most important artists of the day.
Carte started his career working for his father, Richard Carte, in the music publishing and musical instrument manufacturing business. As a young man he conducted and composed music, but he soon turned to promoting the entertainment careers of others through his management agency. Carte believed that a school of wholesome, well-crafted, family-friendly, English comic opera could be as popular as the risqué French works dominating the London musical stage in the 1870s. To that end he brought together the dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan and nurtured their collaboration on a series of thirteen Savoy operas. He founded the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and built the state-of-the-art Savoy Theatre to host the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. (Full article...)
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...)
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General images -
The following are images from various hotel-related articles on Wikipedia.
The Peninsula New York (from Hotel)
Abandoned Grand West Courts in Chicago, demolished in September 2013 (from Motel)
The 4 Seasons Motel sign in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin is an excellent example of googie architecture. (from Motel)
Hotel at Brighton beach in Victoria Australia (from Hotel)
The Tabard Inn, Southwark, London (from Hotel)
Wynn Palace, Macau (from Hotel)
An apartment hotel in Hammond, Indiana (from Apartment hotel)
Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island from Jumeirah Beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge (from Hotel)
Tremont House in Boston, United States, a luxury hotel, the first to provide indoor plumbing (from Hotel)
A large pool at the Thunderbird Motel on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon (1973). (from Motel)
A typical motel lobby at the Rocket Motel in Custer, South Dakota (from Motel)
A motel in Thirroul, New South Wales, Australia (from Motel)
Dutchmaid Motel, 10 miles north of Lancaster, Pennsylvania (from Motel)
Capella Resort, Singapore (from Hotel)
Wigwam Motel No. 6, a unique motel/motor court on historic Route 66 in Holbrook, Arizona (from Motel)
The Waldorf Astoria New York, the most expensive hotel ever sold, cost US$1.95 billion in 2014. (from Hotel)
Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, China (from Hotel)
Rosewood Hong Kong (from Hotel)
A room in a mid-market Russian chain hotel, with a bed, desk, and television. (from Hotel)
Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden (from Hotel)
Raffles Praslin, Seychelles (from Hotel)
Atlantis The Royal, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (from Hotel)
Lobby on 103rd floor at The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong (from Hotel)
The Mid-Trail Motel & Inn in Pleasant Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, 2010 (from Motel)
Sign on Chicago motel (from Motel)
The Harrison Hotel, an SRO hotel in Oakland, California. (from Apartment hotel)
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Selected articles -
- Alessandra Maria Luigia Anna Polizzi di Sorrentino (born 28 August 1971), better known as Alex Polizzi, is a British hotelier, businesswoman, and television personality. Since 2008, she has presented The Hotel Inspector on Channel 5. (Full article...)
- The Suite Life of Karan & Kabir is a Disney Channel India sitcom, which premiered between 8 April 2012 to 18 August 2013. The series is an Indian adaptation of the American show The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
Starring Siddharth Thakkar, Namit Shah, Shivshakti Sachdev, Tara Sutaria, Damman Baggan and Shruti Seth, the series is set in the Raj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai and centers on Karan and Kabir, trouble-making twins who live there. Other main characters include Vinnie, the intelligent candy-counter girl; Rani Oberoi, the wealthy daughter of the hotel's owner; Preeti, the hotel's assistant manager and mother of twins Karan & Kabir; and the hotel's aggressive manager, Mr. Maan Singh. (Full article...)
The Traymore Hotel was a resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Begun as a small boarding house in 1879, the hotel expanded and became one of the city's premier resorts. As Atlantic City began to decline in its popularity as a resort town, during the 1950s and 1960s, the Traymore diminished in popularity. By the early 1970s the hotel was abandoned and severely run down. It was imploded and demolished between April and May 1972, a full four years before the New Jersey Legislature passed the referendum that legalized gambling in Atlantic City. (Full article...)
Juan Quintana Urra (1891–1974) was a Spanish hotelier, bullfight businessman, and activist in the Spanish Republic. He was the basis for the character Juanito Montoya in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. (Full article...)- The International Luxury Hotel Association (ILHA) is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is unifying and advancing the luxury hospitality industry. The association is the luxury hotel industry's influencer that reaches hotel and travel professionals through its media channels and publications. It brings together industry experts and thought leaders to answer the greatest challenges facing the luxury hotel business today. (Full article...)
The Wagon Wheel Motel, Café and Station in Cuba, Missouri, is a 19-room independently owned historic U.S. Route 66 restored motel which has been serving travelers since 1938. The site opened as a café in 1936; the motel has remained in continuous operation since 1938. The motel rooms were fully restored in 2010, adding modern amenities such as HDTV and wireless Internet.
A filling station which once also occupied the original 1936 property is no longer in active use; the original Wagon Wheel Café restaurant is now a retail store filled with jewelry, purses, décor, Route 66 books, T-shirts and a few original Wagon Wheel antiques. The property has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2003. (Full article...)
The Mayflower Hotel is a historic hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., located on Connecticut Avenue NW. It is two blocks north of Farragut Square and one block north of the Farragut North Metro station. The hotel is managed by Autograph Collection Hotels, a division of Marriott International. It is charter member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Mayflower is the largest luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., the longest continuously operating hotel in the Washington metropolitan area, and a rival of the nearby Willard InterContinental Washington and Hay–Adams Hotels.
The Mayflower has been called the "Grande Dame of Washington" and the "Hotel of Presidents", President Harry S. Truman, a frequent guest of the hotel, called the Mayflower Hotel the city's "Second Best Address" after the White House. It ranked a four-star hotel. (Full article...)
Marriott International, Inc. (/ˈmær.i.ət/) is an American multinational company that operates, franchises, and licenses lodging brands that include hotel, residential, and timeshare properties. The company owns over 37 hotel and timeshare brands, with 9,000 locations and 1,597,380 rooms across its network (as of 2023). Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, the company is the successor to the hospitality division of the Marriott Corporation, which was founded by J. Willard Marriott (1900–1985) and his wife Alice Marriott (1907–2000). (Full article...)
Many Glacier Hotel is a historic hotel located on the east shore of Swiftcurrent Lake in Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. Built in 1914 by the Great Northern Railway, the hotel is considered today to be a National Historic Landmark and is a member of Historic Hotels of America. The design of the hotel is in the Swiss chalet style. (Full article...)
Rezidor Hotel Group AB, originally SAS International Hotels A/S and then Rezidor SAS Hospitality A/S, Rezidor SAS Hospitality Group AB (publ), was a listed hotel group company. Originally founded by Scandinavian conglomerate SAS Group as a hotel in 1960, it became a listed company in 2006. The global headquarters of Rezidor relocated to Brussels, Belgium, circa 1989. The listed company managed hotel chains under brands such as Radisson SAS (now Radisson Blu), Park Inn, and Country Inns & Suites. The brands were franchised from American hospitality and travel conglomerate Carlson Companies from 1994 (the Radisson brand) and 2002 (the other brands) respectively. In 2005, Carlson Companies acquired 25% of the shares of Rezidor Hotel Group from SAS Group. In 2007, SAS Group ceased to be a shareholder of the company.
In 2010, Carlson Companies acquired control (more than 50.1% shares) of the listed company. In 2012, Rezidor Hotel Group started to integrate with the direct parent company (Carlson Hotels, Inc.), with both companies collectively known as Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group. Carlson Rezidor was one of the top hotel corporations in 2013. Carlson Hotels, Inc. and its subsidiaries, including Rezidor Hotel Group, were sold to Chinese conglomerate HNA Group in 2016. Rezidor Hotel Group AB was then renamed to Radisson Hospitality AB. The direct parent company (Carlson Hotels, Inc.) became Radisson Hospitality, Inc., and the whole hotel group received a new trading name – Radisson Hotel Group. In 2018, Radisson Hotel Group was re-sold to a consortium led by Jin Jiang International of China. (Full article...)
Swissôtel The Stamford, formerly known as The Westin Stamford, is a hotel in Singapore managed by Accor. Designed by architect I.M. Pei, at a height of 226 metres (741 ft) it was the tallest hotel in the world when opened in 1986 and remains one of Southeast Asia's tallest hotels. It is part of the Raffles City complex comprising two hotels, the Raffles City Convention Centre, Raffles City shopping centre, and an office tower. Situated at 2 Stamford Road, the hotel sits above City Hall MRT station and Esplanade MRT station.
The 5-star hotel is a sister hotel of Fairmont Singapore and has 1,252 rooms and suites, 12 restaurants and bars, Raffles City Convention Centre, and one of Asia's largest spas, Willow Stream Spa. A major renovation of the hotel was completed in 2019. (Full article...)
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas (commonly referred to simply as The Cosmopolitan or The Cosmo) is a resort casino and hotel on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It is owned by the Blackstone Group, Stonepeak Partners, and the Cherng Family Trust, and operated by MGM Resorts International. The resort includes a 100,000 sq ft (9,300 m2) casino and 3,033 rooms across two towers, as well as a 3,200-seat performance theater and various restaurants.
The project was announced in 2004, by a joint venture that included real estate developer Ian Bruce Eichner. Construction on the hotel towers began in April 2007, following excavation work for an underground parking garage. Deutsche Bank helped finance the project, and eventually took over ownership in September 2008, after the original developers defaulted on a loan. The resort's interior underwent several redesigns, and plans to include a condo hotel component were ultimately scrapped.
The Cosmopolitan opened on December 15, 2010, and at $3.9 billion, it was the most expensive Strip resort built up to that point. The resort proved to be popular, although casino revenue lagged behind other amenities. Deutsche Bank sold the resort to The Blackstone Group in 2014, for $1.7 billion. Blackstone made numerous changes which improved gaming revenue, and the company also negotiated a deal with the Culinary Workers Union, whose members had protested at the resort over the lack of a union contract. The resort operations were sold to MGM in 2022, while Cherng and Stonepeak joined Blackstone as owners. (Full article...)
Room service with empanadas at Boon Hotel + Spa in Guerneville, California.
Room service or in-room dining is a hotel service enabling guests to choose items of food and drink for delivery to their hotel room for consumption. Room service is organized as a subdivision within the food and beverage department of high-end hotel and resort properties. It is uncommon for room service to be offered in hotels that are not high-end, or in motels. Room service may also be provided for guests on cruise ships. Room service may be provided on a 24-hour basis or limited to late night hours only. Due to the cost of customized orders and delivery of room service, prices charged to the patron are typically much higher than in the hotel's restaurant or tuck shop, and a gratuity is expected in some regions. (Full article...)
Conrad Nicholson Hilton (December 25, 1887 – January 3, 1979) was an American hotel magnate and politician who founded the Hilton Hotels chain. From 1912 to 1916, Hilton was a Republican representative in the first New Mexico Legislature, but became disillusioned with the "inside deals" of politics. In 1919, he purchased his first hotel, the Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, for US$40,000 (equivalent to $742,802 in 2025) and subsequently capitalized on the oil boom. The rooms were rented out in eight-hour shifts. He continued to purchase and sell hotels, and eventually established the world's first international hotel chain. When he died in 1979, he left the bulk of his estate to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. (Full article...)
The New York Biltmore Hotel was a luxury hotel at 335 Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The hotel was developed by the New York Central Railroad and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and operated from 1913 to 1981. It was one of several large hotels developed around Grand Central Terminal as part of Terminal City. The Biltmore was designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style by Warren and Wetmore, one of the firms involved in designing Grand Central. Although the hotel's steel frame still exists, the hotel itself was almost entirely demolished and replaced by an office building in the early 1980s.
The hotel building was variously cited as having between 23 and 26 stories. The hotel had a facade of granite, limestone, brick, and terracotta. Most of its floor plan was U-shaped, with a light court facing east toward Vanderbilt Avenue. In the basement was a reception room that led directly from Grand Central Terminal. The public dining rooms, including the Palm Court and main dining room, were at ground level. There was a roof garden above the sixth story, facing east toward Vanderbilt Avenue. There were additional ballrooms and meeting spaces on the upper stories. In total, the Biltmore had 1,000 rooms and suites; the fourth floor included a private entertainment suite called the Presidential Suite.
Following the construction of Grand Central Terminal, the New York Central started planning a hotel on the city block in the early 1910s, and it officially opened on December 31, 1913. The hotel was originally operated by Gustav Baumann, who died in October 1914. The hotel's manager, John McEntee Bowman, then operated it until his own death in 1931, affiliating the Biltmore with the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels chain. Realty Hotels Inc., a subsidiary of the New York Central, took over the hotel in 1934 and operated it for four decades. Paul Milstein acquired the hotel in 1978 and began demolishing the interiors immediately after the hotel closed on August 15, 1981. Despite protests from preservationists, Milstein gutted the Biltmore and converted it into an office building called Bank of America Plaza, which reopened in May 1984. Bank of America relocated in 2010 and the building became 335 Madison Avenue. Following another renovation in 2019, the structure became The Company Building, which in turn was renamed 22 Vanderbilt in late 2022. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that a restaurant in a Thai hotel serves "Chicken Volcano", a dish containing whiskey?
- ... that Frank Ocean's song "American Wedding" was pulled from streaming platforms because of its unauthorized use of "Hotel California"?
- ... that former US president Theodore Roosevelt was shot in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel in 1912?
- ... that the official "first guest" of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Memphis was also the first guest at the original Holiday Inn 33 years earlier?
- ... that the McMenamins Hotel Oregon UFO Festival was established in 2000 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the McMinnville UFO hoax?
- ... that the Rydges Hotel in Christchurch, New Zealand, has been empty since the 2011 earthquake?
- ... that the Hotel Marcel has been called both Connecticut's ugliest building and one of New England's best hotels?
- ... that New York City's Hotel Marseilles, once a shelter for Holocaust survivors, later became affordable housing for the elderly?
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