HISTORY OF HOTEL

Lo, the genealogy of hotel. The inn begot the monastery, the monastery lived for decades and begot the rooms, the rooms lived for decades and begot the motel, the motel lived for years and begot the hotel. The hotel offers temporary shelter, food and other relevant services to people at a cost. The word hotel is actually a French word that means hospital- a derivative of hospitality.This confirmed the mission and objective of the existence of inn as originally an hospital and at the same time offering essential hotel related services. Remember how Christ Jesus was laid in the manger at birth because there was no more room for them at the inn. The parable of the good Samaritan who deposited the armed robbery victim at the inn to be taken care of presumably both as a guest and a patient lend credence to the fact that hotel existence pre dated civilization.

We may not be able to tie the origin of hotel to a certain date but suffice to say that hotel has existed from the earliest civilization through renaissance era to the middle ages, survived the Greco-Roman epoch right to the medieval Europe and to the present open era. The first and earliest recorded history of hotel was in 1768 at the Exeter according to Wikipedia. Though, not necessarily the oldest as the oldest hotel can be found in Hoshi Pyokan in ancient Japan. It was established in 707 AD. Over the years, generations and centuries, the purpose of the hotel has remained largely unchanged. What has witnessed significant and revolutionary changes has been service rendered and infrastructures. In the pre -civilization era, the inns offered just solitary rooms with minimal comfort and practically no luxury. It was simply a place to wash your face and armpit and rest so as to continue your journey. Guess that was the reason most inn were located on dusty access road. Staffs were often limited to the owner whose only preoccupation was to sell space and time.

With the increased demand of lodgers as guests were then called, there was need to improve on basic rooms conditions and added non -room values. Hence, the addition of facilities like restaurants, spas, swimming pools, gymnasium and the likes.  Equally, the volume of lodgers demanding rooms was one of the reasons hotels broke into several specialized areas depending on choice of clientèle and sometimes locations. This allowed hotels to concentrate on areas where they have comparative advantage and the lodgers the opportunity of choice.

Industrial revolution that swept through medieval Europe in the 17th century helped modified the hotel in terms of structure and aesthetics. Compared to the pre -modern times when rooms were hopelessly inadequate; the success of the industrial revolution translated to the building of many rooms and facilities under one civil structure. As a chain reaction, this eventually led to organized and trained personnel to attend to the various and almost insatiable demands of guests. This is of course jump started the economy of the industry and finally metamorphosed into hotel management which today is a special area of human endeavour. Though the emergence of graduates of this discipline and specialists from the industry has not totally stopped the encroachment of charlatans, the good news is that the sanitization process has started.

And as a fall out we now have segregation of hotels like budget hotels, resort hotels, guest house, luxury hotel, apartments, transit hotels, underwater hotels, capsule hotels and so on. Each defined and determined by culture, innovations, pricing, clientèle base and so many other factors too numerable to be mentioned here.

In a nutshell, this treatise has summarily captured the history of hotel as time and space permit. Hopefully, this piece will generate further exposition from contemporaries and senior colleagues in the industry as we continue to learn every day.