HOTELS: BRIEF HISTORY

The history of hotels is intimately connected to that of civilizations. Or rather, it is a part of that history. Facilities offering guests hospitality have been in evidence since early biblical times. The Greeks developed thermal baths in villages designed for rest and recuperation. Later, the Romans built mansions to provide accommodation for travelers on government business. The Romans were the first to develop thermal baths in England, Switzerland and the Middle East. Later still, caravanserais appeared, providing a resting place for caravans along Middle Eastern routes. In the Middle Ages, monasteries and abbeys were the first establishments to offer refuge to travelers on a regular basis. Religious orders built inns, hospices and hospitals to cater for those on the move.

In the beginning, there was a fire at the hearth, a warm meal and a roof over one‘s head. Thus begins the history of the hotel industry. People have been providing hospitality for weary travelers since our ancestors inhabited the earth about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

Some years down the line, in the age of antiquity, spas and bathhouses often provided sleeping facilities and were popular attractions for those seeking rest and relaxation.

In medieval times, it was mostly cloisters and abbeys that provided travelers with accommodation. It was also during this period that more and more inns and guesthouses were opened on popular trade routes to provide food and lodging for travelling merchants and their horses.

These were not hotels as we know them today. Hotel chains such as the “Ritz” only came into being hundreds of years later and were a manifestation of the growing prosperity of developing industrial nations.휴게텔

The hotel industry, which always strove to meet a changing society’s needs and demands, has meanwhile developed into a highly complex branch of the economy. Today, the hotel industry includes all categories of establishments from inexpensive guesthouses to luxurious 5 star hotels. Hotel management strategies have had to adapt to these developments and it could be said that these strategies have even entered the realm of science. The demand for and the choice of subjects that can be studied such as hotel or hospitality management  show the increasing academisation of the hotel industry.

Hotels are places normally associated with pleasure, relaxation and luxury – weddings, parties, holidays – or more mundane activities like business trips and conferences. They are omnipresent and ordinary, but when circumstances are extraordinary, as they are in the middle of the current COVID-19 crisis, hotels have to adapt quickly to new and unexpected realities.  

As the current crisis gradually closes down the tourist industry in many parts of the world, empty hotels are being redeployed as accommodation for key medical staff, as quarantine centers or as field hospitals. No longer places for leisure, business, enjoyment and indulgence, they have become instead vital components in the infrastructure of crisis management.