Underwater Hotels

Hotel Trends
New luxury underwater hotels are popping up everywhere. From ordinary to bizarre, these hotels are just something else and are a 'must-visit' for every avid traveler. Top on the list of underwater hotels is the Jules Undersea Lodge in Florida, USA. Named after the famous maritime tale, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, it is the first underwater hotel in the world. Located at a depth of 21ft in a small mangrove lagoon, the hotel was previously a research laboratory. Equipped with all the necessary facilities, it will cost you from $375 a night including breakfast and lunch. Built by a man with an imagination, The Utter (Otter) Inn in Sweden is a one-room inn. Guests can sleep 3m below the surface of Lake Mälaren, found around 1km from the shore.…
Read More

Hotels Retool In-Room Dining

Hotel Trends
Room service, or in-room dining as it is now often called, is being retooled at many hotels as a way to cut costs while struggling with lessened demand for rooms and decreased travel. In-room dining has never been profitable for hotels, even prior to the recession, but has always been de rigueur for hotels of a certain stature, Joseph McInerney, president and chief executive of American Hotel and Lodging Association, told The New York Times. Brad Barnes, founder of restaurant consulting firm GigaChef, added that the service enhances the welcoming feel of a hotel, which in turn bolsters customer loyalty and the overall perception of the establishment. So how do hotels trim their in-room dining offerings without axing the service altogether? According to the Times, some are focusing more on…
Read More

When the Most Private of Business Becomes Public

Hotel Trends
The newest design trend among luxury hotels is the exposed bathroom, reports The New York Times. From Los Angeles and London to China and India, bathrooms enclosed (barely) by transparent glass walls and bathrooms that are free-standing, open areas of hotel rooms are all the rage among designers and hoteliers. The arguments for these designs range from conserving space to adding luxury to opening up hotel rooms by removing walls and letting in natural light. Some proponents of the exposed bathroom have also argued that the design minimizes spatial confusion and allows guests to locate easily all areas of their hotel rooms. (I say you’d have to be from another planet to need help differentiating between the clothes closet and the water closet.) Of course, for couples there’s also the…
Read More