When booking accommodation, the term “hotel” is the most common generalized term. The type of accommodation you want to choose would depend mainly on the purpose of travel & your budget.
A hotel’s primary mission is to offer a comfortable room to sleep and usually to offer other services such as meals or recreation. Most hotels offer private sleeping rooms with bathrooms, front desk services, luggage services, food & beverage services and guest services. They may also offer commercial services to business travelers, including a business center, electronic devices and multi-line phones. Depending on class of hotel, they may have one to five or more F&B outlets.
The following hotel descriptions will give you an idea of few of their features & benefits.
Airport Properties
Situated close to airports, these hotels cater to the business traveler or leisure traveler with long “lay-over” in an airport en-route to another destination. These hotels are also being used to hold meetings, conventions, seminars especially when participants are flying from different locations.
Ex: KIA lodge, Near Kilimanjaro Airport.
All-suites hotels
These are like small apartments with a bedroom, living room with limited kitchen facilities. Some all-suites hotel may include microwaves, coffee makers and small refrigerators. Living room will include pull out sofa and desk. These hotels fall into the luxury and mid-range category and cater to the corporate travelers whose stay is a week or more.
Boutique Hotels
Smaller hotels that offer unique personalized services.
Conference centres
Generally conference centres are upscale (first-class) properties catering to corporate clients meetings. Usually pricing is inclusive of food, beverage and conference services. The meeting rooms have been designed to accommodate special needs of 10-15 attendees.
Convention Centres
Part of, or adjacent to, large hotels, these centres have extensive meeting facilities and large exhibition halls. They cater to large meetings and trade shows and generally are mid-range to upper-range.
Extended stays
This type of hotel is quickly becoming popular on the market. They are designed for corporate travellers who are on a long-term assignment and desire more home-like accommodation. In some situations, the traveler’s families will also be staying with them. These facilities may also be located in resort areas and cater to senior travelers who require more than a standard hotel room for a month or more. This type of traveler may need full service but is unwilling to pay the All-suite costs.
Limited Service
Some hotels provide basic sleeping rooms and minimal food service outlets such as breakfast buffet and coffee and non-alcoholic drink vending machines. Services such as laundry, business centres, exercise facilities etc are not provided.
Motels
These services are generally smaller and cater to people traveling by car (Motor hotel = motel). They may or may not have a F&B outlet but often will have a café that accommodates breakfast, lunch and dinner. The front desk covers check-in, check-out guest services and luggage assistance. Motels are generally located outside of urban centres in suburban or rural areas and are usually lower in price than a hotel.
Resorts
These are hotels that cater to vacation travelers as well as businesses holding conferences and meetings. Services are all-inclusive so that the guest does not have to leave the premises for any need. They will have F&B outlets, sports facilities, health club, and entertainment, baby-sitting and parking.
Most resorts are luxurious to lavish. Specialties may include seasonal recreation such as skiing and golfing or catering to couples, honeymooners, singles or families.
Spas
These are resorts offering health, physical fitness, nutritional advice or just plain pampering. There are tennis courts, swimming pools, hiking trails, beauty salons and specially prepared meals.
The next time when you plan to book accommodation, make sure you specify the exact type of accommodation you are looking for. Your agent would be glad to find you the right pick.