Accommodation industry

A hotel is a temporary home for people who are travelling. In a hotel the traveller can rest and has access to food and drinks. The hotel may also offer facilities for recreation, such as a swimming pool, a golf course or a beach. In many cases the hotel also provides free space for the traveller’s means of transportation. All of these services are designed to accommodate the traveller, so the hotel business is often referred to as the accommodations industry.

Travel and hotels have always been closely related. In Europe and America, inns and taverns were spaced along the roads at the distance a horse could travel in a day. The inns were primitive by modern standards. The traveller usually had to share his bed with at least one other person, and as many as four other persons in some remote areas. The old-fashioned inns, however, did provide food and shelter for both men and horses and therefore became a symbol for hospitality. Indeed, the word “inn” has been used recently by many modern hotels and motels.

Modern mass transportation, that is, the movement of large numbers of people at relatively low prices, began with the development of the railroads in the 19^th century. Up to that time, accommodations had been provided by country inns or by family-owned and - operated hotels in the cities. As the railroads carried larger numbers of people further and more rapidly, large hotels were constructed near the train stations. The cluster of hotels around Grand Central terminal in New York is a good surviving example of this stage of development of the hotel industry.

The other means of transportation – the automobile and the airline – resulted in the growth of corresponding accommodations facilities. In the case of automobile, motels that serve people travelling by car have sprung up along highways all over the world.

The word “motel” was created by combining motor and hotel. When automobiles were first used, flimsy and inexpensive tourist cabins were built beside the highways. Then, as people demanded greater comfort, the cabins were replaced by tourist courts and then by the modern hotels. Motels or motor hotels providing parking facilities for cars were also constructed in many large cities, where they now compete with the other commercial hotels.

The airline extended the distances that people could travel in a short period. For the accommodations industry it was a boom in the construction of resort hotels. A resort is a place to which people travel for recreation. It may offer mountain scenery, the combination of sun and sea, or features that are entirely man-made, like Disneyland in California.

All hotels do not serve the same clientele, that is, the same kind of guests. In fact, it is possible to place hotels in four board categories. The first is the commercial hotel, which provides services essentially for transients, many of them travelling on business. Many city hotels and diversely located motels fall into this group. The second category is resort hotels. Located in vacation areas, they often provide recreational facilities of their own as well. A third type of hotel aims its services largely at the convention trade. Conventions are meetings, usually held yearly, of various business or professional groups. Not so long ago, most conventions were held in large urban centres such as New York and Washington D.C. The fourth category is residential hotels. People who do not wish to keep house themselves can rent accommodations on a seasonal basis or even permanently in many hotels.

No firm distinction exists between the different kinds of hotels. In large cities that are also tourist centres, such as New York, Paris, Tokyo, London and Rome, one hotel may offer all types of service. And even a small hotel may have banquet rooms and meeting rooms in addition to its accommodations for transients.

Another way of categorizing hotels is by quality of service they offer. At the top are the luxury hotels, which generally offer their guests the greatest comfort and convenience possible. At the bottom are those that provide merely a place to sleep. A system for rating hotels according to quality is widely used in France and a number of other countries. This system puts the top hotels in a special deluxe category, with other receiving from five stars to one star or “A’s”. The standard features include private bathrooms, room telephones, recreational facilities and so on.

The difference in quality between hotels is not entirely a matter of equipment or furnishings. The proportion of employees to guests and guest rooms is also a matter of prime importance. In general, the accommodations industry is labour-intensive; that is it employs a large number of people to perform its services. In a luxury hotel, there may be three employees for every guest room. In a large commercial hotel in a big city, the ratio is usually closer to one employee per guest room. Obviously, the services offered by a small hotel will be far more restricted than those provided by a luxury hotel.

The larger and more luxurious the hotel is, the greater the variety of jobs that it offers. Nevertheless, the administration and organization of a small hotel is similar to a large one. Engineering and maintenance for a small establishment may be done by contract with local firms, whereas a large hotel will hire its own staff for these functions.

Generally, the problems and opportunities in all hotels are comparable, since all provide shelter, food and other services for the travelling public.

Large, modern hotels nowadays contain not only guest rooms, but many other facilities as well. They usually contain restaurants and cocktail lounges, shops and recreational facilities for social functions, conventions and conferences – ballrooms, auditoriums, meeting rooms of different sizes, exhibit areas and so forth.

Not so long ago, convention facilities were ordinarily found only in large cities or in intensively developed resort areas like Miami Beach. Nowadays they are more often included in resort hotels so that the people who attend conventions there can combine business with pleasure.

Another trend in the hotel industry is the construction of the self-contained resort complex. Recreational facilities are another feature of many hotels and motels. A swimming pool is the most common of these, particularly in warmer climates and in resort areas. A swimming pool in front of the building is a form of advertisement for motel in places such as Florida, California, Egypt, Turkey and other resorts. Other recreational facilities include tennis courts and golf courses at resort hotels. Many resorts are designed for winter sports such as skiing and ice skating; others provide horseback riding and other outdoor activities.

Casinos, wherever they are legal, are another feature of some hotels. In Las Vegas, Nevada, the hotels feed, house and entertain guests, but the real profits come from the casinos. In Puerto Rico and other places, gambling usually acts as an additional, rather than principal, attraction for hotels.

A few hotels, most of them in resort areas or large cities, include nightclubs as a part of their operation. Sometimes the nightclub is rented out to a concessionaire, but in other hotels it is the responsibility of the food and beverage department or of a special staff. A nightclub offers entertainment, such as dancing, a singer, a band, or a floor show, in addition to food and drink. The engagement of a well-known entertainer obviously gives the hotel an excellent promotional opportunity. The hotels in the gambling resort of Las Vegas, Nevada, for example, publicize not only the entertainers in their nightclubs, but also the huge salaries that they receive, perhaps on the theory that the higher the fee, the better the entertainer.

All of these recreational facilities require the employment of additional personnel. Necessary swimming-pool maintenance is often contracted out. Golf courses must be carefully tended by a special staff of groundskeepers. Horses require stables and grooming. Many resort hotels hire professional athletes to give lessons to the guests in tennis, golf and skiing. Other employees include riding instructors and guides for hikers and campers. Lifeguards are often necessary at swimming pools and beaches.

Catering, providing food and drink for transients, has always gone together with accommodations. Food services are a feature of hotels. The typical modern “packaged hotel” includes a restaurant, a coffee shop for quicker and less expensive meals, and a bar or cocktail lounge. Many larger hotels have several restaurants, often featuring different kinds of foods, as well as different prices. Hotels also normally provide “room service” – food and drink that are brought to the guest’s room. In addition, catering service is provided in the hotel’s recreational areas. The poolside bar and snack bar, for quick food, are normal parts of the service at a resort hotel. So, restaurants, bars and nightclubs outside the hotels are a standard feature of the resort scene. They provide not only catering, but also some kind of entertainment for the tourist who is bored with the limits of hotel life.

Large urban hotels also provide special services for businessmen. A commercial hotel, for example, can provide a stenographer to take dictation and do typing for the travelling businessman. Some luxury hotels also give the guests access to copying, internet, modem points, facsimile machines, computers with printer, scanner, word processor and other machines. Many large hotels also have a notary public on the staff to verify the signatures on documents.

The list of special services offered by hotels is long. These services differ according to the location and the clientele of the hotel; luxury hotels offer the greatest range of services. This is, in fact, what makes them luxury hotels.

Task 4. Look through the text and find the English equivalents for: