People have been offering hospitality to weary travellers from anything up to around 10,000 years ago. As time progressed, spas and bathhouses were introduced, and these started offering sleeping facilities that were quite popular with those seeking relaxation. Fast forward a few thousand years; we now have five-star hotels that attract tourists and travellers from all over the world.
What is a Hotel?
Before diving deeper into the history of the hotel industry, it’s crucial to first get an understanding of what a hotel is. By definition, a hotel is simply an establishment that provides meals, accommodation, and a variety of other services for tourists and travellers. People use hotels for different purposes. Most people just want a place to sleep while away from home on business, for hospital visits, or during vacations. Hotels come in varieties of shapes and sizes, and their nature has changed and evolved over time.
The First Hotels
Hotels go back many thousands of years ago. They may not have been like the ones we know now, but they date back as far as the early days of civilization. Back in those days, travellers and those who needed accommodation would exchange goods or money for a roof over their heads. Because people used to travel on foot, horse or cart, journeys would take longer, and this made hotels a necessity.
While the general concept of hotels matches what we have now, they were not as luxurious as the ones that are there now. People would generally get a room in somebody’s house, and sometimes it was an outhouse. This is understandable since it was out of necessity. After all, people just needed a place to sleep and maybe refresh. Over time, savvy businessmen started building on this concept, and society started having more of what we can equate to modern-day hotels.
The rooms that were rented in private homes were known as hospitia. The word has been derived over time from the word hospitality. Over time these homeowners started commercializing these rooms. They started offering not only a place to sleep but food and drink as well. Instead of being places where people could find shelter during their journeys, the hospitia became places where people, usually the upper classes, would travel for relaxation purposes. One of the most popular examples is the House of Sallust. Before the city of Pompeii was destroyed in 79 A.D., this hotel was one of the best destinations.
The Middle Ages
As time progressed, businessmen started establishing inns and staging posts to cater to travellers. These spots cropped up around Europe and globally. Unfortunately, traveling for recreational purposes during these times wasn’t particularly safe. As such, most of these inns were used by government workers, couriers, and pilgrims.
The Modern Hotel Industry
Hotels, as we know them now, started gaining popularity around the fifteenth century. This was when the industry started developing a bit of structure. For instance, the English and the French introduced laws that required hotel owners to keep a guest register. During this time, about 600 taverns were registered in England. These buildings would offer food and a place to sleep. They also offered fodder and stabling for horses belonging to the travellers. Apart from the laws, these were almost identical to those that were offered in Ancient Rome.
Coaching inns also became popular in the times that led to the introduction of rail travel. They were about seven miles apart in England, and each town typically had up to ten of them. Still, apart from the wealthy, not a lot of people were traveling for leisure during these times. As you might imagine, more inns meant more competition between inn owners. To attract more travellers, inn owners started running their establishments more professionally. For instance, some introduced meal timetables and fixed menus. This was the beginning of what we now know as hotels.
18th and 19th Century Hotels
Once inns started being more organized, not a lot changed in the hotel industry apart from the hotels growing bigger to cater to more people. During the 19th century, people also increasingly started traveling for leisure. This was when hotels started becoming grander, so they could offer other things apart from food and a place to sleep.
The Exeter is one of the very first modern hotels. Established in 1768, this hotel could accommodate lots of travellers. About half a century later, in 1829, the Tremont House was introduced. This hotel holds the record for a lot of industry firsts. For instance, it’s the first establishment to have proper indoor plumbing with baths and toilets. It also offered free soap, which made it a tourist favourite. The hotel also had a proper reception area that served other purposes apart from receiving payments.
Over time, as people started having more structured work schedules, time off, and more efficient modes of transport, the hotel business evolved, and owners realized there had to be lots of variety. Because of the different types of target audiences, you can now find five-star hotels, motels, beach resorts, and budget hostels with varying prices depending on what they offer.