Hotel
Hotels are commercial establishments that provide short-term accommodation, meals, and other services for guests such as travellers and tourists.
The quality and cost of hotels varies very widely. In the UK, the Valuation Office Agency suggests that most hotels can be classified as:
- Five Star and Luxury Four Star Hotels.
- Boutique Hotels.
- Country House Hotels.
- Town House Hotels.
- Commercial 3 & 4 Star Hotels.
- Airport Hotels.
- Seaside Hotels.
- Coaching Hotels.
- Older & Historic 3 Star Hotels.
- Budget Hotels/Lodges.
- Small Independently Owned Hotels.
- Aparthotels and Serviced Apartments.
The standard of accommodation and service provided within these definitions may vary very significantly compared to similar definitions in other countries.
For the purposes of planning permission, use class C1 is 'Hotels', which includes; hotels, boarding and guest houses where no significant element of care is provided. It does not include hostels. Hostels provide non-self-contained acccomodation, and cater for an identifiable group of people, such as students, travellers, people who would otherwise be homeless and so on. They tend to be low-cost and may be self-catering, or may provide meals.
Articles about hotels on Designing Buildings Wiki include:
- US Embassy hotel plans.
- Army and Navy Hotel.
- Hilton Tallinn Park case study.
- Ryugyong Hotel, North Korea.
- North Korea hotel.
- Oasia Hotel Downtown, Singapore.
- Spring Street Hotel, LA.
- Trump International Hotel and Tower, Vancouver.
- Julian Opie Art Wall CitizenM Tower of London Hotel.
See also: The history of hotels.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings
- Apart-hotel.
- Bookmatched Marble for Boutique Hotel.
- Eco-hotel.
- Hostel.
- How to create a sustainable hotel.
- Julian Opie Art Wall CitizenM Tower of London Hotel
- Julian Opie Limestone & Bronze Frieze for Bermuda Hotel
- Oasia Hotel Downtown, Singapore
- Residential building.
- Ryugyong Hotel, North Korea
- Sheltered housing definition.
- Spring Street Hotel, LA.
- The history of hotels.
- Treehotel
- Trump International Hotel and Tower, Vancouver
- Types of building.
- US Embassy hotel plans
- Use class.
Featured articles
Check out some of the best features and news from Designing Buildings as well as key stories from around the web.
New and updated CLC building safety guidance.
New UK National Buildings Database.
Building Safety Wiki Interviews
Chief executive of the British Woodworking Federation.
Planning condition discharge in England and Wales
A brief explanation from a building compliance expert, with further links.
Overheating guidance and tools for building designers
Guidance for dealing with element of building fabric control that have increasing importance.
Shading for housing, a design guide
From the Good Homes Alliance and British Blind and Shutter Association.
UK Standard Skills Classification (SSC)
A shared framework for describing skills needs.
Social media ban consultation comes to close
CIOB urges UK Government to consider social media’s role in careers guidance in ban debate.
The latest of eight Skills England apprenticeship units
The addition of battery manufacturing welcomed by ECA with a warning about the risks of fast-tracked apprenticeship units.
Building Control Independent Panel final report
A precis of a key report led by Dame Hackitt with full recommendations and link to the government response.
Building Safety recap April, 2026
A short and longer run-through of the month, with links to further information and sources.
















