Archive for March, 2009
March 18th, 2009 | 
Author: It is becoming increasingly common to see that many of the new, smaller, hotels are describing themselves as a “Boutique Hotel”. Across the city of London, the capital city of England in the United Kingdom, there are now a small number of superb boutique hotels but what exactly is a “Boutique Hotel” and where did they first appear? The following article provides an explanation.
More often than not a boutique hotel is owned, run and maintained by one family, a couple, and in some cases, small hotel chains specializing in this type of accommodation. However, there has been a recent trend for some of the larger hotel chains to build hotels to meet the specific demand for these hotels so this distinction may not hold true for much longer! One thing that has to be true is that they are unique in style and decoration and often based upon a theme. Such themes can range from a hotel decorated and furnished in the 17th Century style to one which is focused on chocolate for avid chocoholics. Sometimes a boutique hotel may feature rooms which have different themes to each other with no overall theme but this is rare.
Where Was The First Boutique Hotel?
Boutique hotels first appeared in the late 1980s in New York USA. Although some hotels claim to have been boutique hotels as far back as 1981 in places such as London UK and San Francisco the first hotel to be described as such was the ‘Morgans’ hotel, New York, in 1984. These earlier claimants were, therefore, subsequently described as such and can not, realistically, claim to be the first.
‘Morgans’ hotel was owned by Steven Rubell and Ian Schrager who had commissioned the Parisian designer Andrée Putman to create a unique, highly stylized, hotel in New York. Putman created the hotel in what has become known as an “America meets Europe” fashion. Steven Rubell needed to promote his hotel to compete with those owned by large hotel chains and, to do this, he decided to attempt to set his apart from all others. He described other hotels as “department store” hotels and his own as a “boutique hotel” to show the distinctive difference – thus the phrase entered the English language for the first time.
Interesting Boutique Hotels in the United Kingdom
42 The Calls (hotel) in Leeds claims to be one of the first to appear in the UK. The Calls was a hotel built in the carcass of an old corn mill and used that as the overall theme. The hotel is well known for featuring superb, and extremely comfortable, hand crafted beds in each room and, interestingly, it also has some of the old corn mills original machinery.
The Blake’s Hotel in South Kensington, London, is often quoted as being one of the first boutique hotels in the world but, although this appeared before Morgans in New York, for the reasons outlined above this claim is often dismissed. In recent decades there has been a sharp increase in the number of boutique hotels opening in various places within the United Kingdom of Great Britain with the largest number opening in London.
If you are planning a trip to, or a vacation in, London and you are considering booking a boutique hotel you may wish to check out the listings of boutique hotels in London at http://www.londonhotelhelper.com/
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No one wants to pay more for anything than they have to, and the same goes for when you are traveling. If you want to get a great cheap European tour guide then you are going to want to get as cheap European tour as you can. Well in this case, there are a few top picks in particular that you are going to want to learn more about.
There are also a few tips that are going to be helpful to you here if you want to take a cheap European tour.
Picks For Cheap European Tour
Let’s start with a few of the companies that are available online and which you can always feel safe going through if you want to get a cheap European tour. There is the European World Travel Company for one. This is a great example of a company that you can go through if you are looking to get cheap European travel so that you never have to pay full price.
There is also another company named Travelocity, one that you may be more familiar with. They too offer some great deals and so if you are looking for cheap travel deals to Europe or anywhere else in the world for that matter, then you are going to be able to get just what you need through here.
Tips
Now there are also some important tips that are going to be useful to you here when you are looking for cheap European travel. One tip is to go in the shoulder season. Visiting in the spring or fall is certainly going to make you able to save your money because you will not prefer to go during the busier months.
Senseless research is also of crucial importance here. There is absolutely no substitute for shopping around when it comes to finding great deals on airlines and hotels, and so you are going to have to take some time to do some shopping around and this is the only way to ensure that you are going to get the best price for your money.
Use of right credit cards is also of vital importance here. There are certain types of credit cards that are better for you while traveling to Europe and that area of the world, so check on this with your bank before going anywhere.