Holidays | Vacation Information Resouces

The lowdown on Boutique Hotels

June 16th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

The lowdown on Boutique Hotels

Are you ready for your annual vacation? Whats it gonna be this time, The Hilton or The Comfort Inn, or possibly a splash on The Ramada? All great at doing they’re thing. But there is something else. A boutique hotel.

What’s a boutique hotel? Think about the relaxed atmosphere at home, combined with artisticly themed furnishings and decor. Mix that in with customer service to die for. Truck loads of must have conveniences; satellite tv, internet access and luxurious spa treatments, make for an appetizing retreat.

The building that houses the boutique may be styled on a particular era, like the 1920s or 40s. The building itself might even date back to the 20s or before it. Don’t forget though that all the latest in technology will be at your aid as well.

Some boutiques only have between 20 and 80 rooms. Booking early on the internet or via phone is recommended. You will be able to find some larger boutiques that have over 100 rooms. In these boutique hotels you will find swimming pools, restaurants and bars on site. Some provide free access to roof top terraces.

So, doesn’t sound much different than a chain hotel i hear you say. Well for a start your hotel will incorporate a period of history or its local surroundings and ingest them into the theme of the hotel. Local arts, crafts and furniture, will be cultivated from the local area into the hotel. The Anasazi Hotel in Santa Fe for example, displays local southwest region culture to decorate its home.

While many hotels use their surroundings to come up with a theme, some boutique hotels stick with a time period. One such place is New Orleans. However, there are other places including a hotel in San Francisco. Hotel Union Square has a Prohibition era theme in its rooms and halls. Each room and hallway has a black granite and cream travertine tile.

That isn’t to say all boutiques base their theme on the local area. The Inn of Five Graces in Santa Fe bases it’s theme on the southwest culture and mixes it with Asian culture. There are plenty of boutiques outside of the US, in cities as far away as Moscow and Singapore.

If you find a boutique hotel you are interested in staying in, you should realize that a short notice reservation is likely not going to work. Most boutique hotels have a limited amount of rooms. They average out around 25 to 50 rooms. There are some boutique hotels which have over 100 rooms and others that have only three or four rooms to stay in. These small number of rooms allow employees to get to know their guests. Be sure to put your reservation in as soon as you know when you will be leaving on your vacation/business trip.

While mainstream hotels offer plenty of extras, boutique hotels provide more. Even though most buildings are old, they are retrofitted for modern conveniences such as high speed Internet access, spas, swimming pools and even a fitness center. Boutique hotels, larger ones especially, will offer guests a bar and restaurant inside to enjoy.

All in all a stay at a boutique hotel if definitely worth paying the increased premium for. With top notch service, no end of luxuries, and even a bit of culture, who says a vacation has to be a blase experience. And if you are searching for botique hotel accomadations on a carribean vacation, just click.

You can find some more info before you book a (http://boutiquehotelinfo.com) boutique hotel. You will find out a lot of information about various (http://boutiquehotelinfo.com) boutique hotels around the globe.