By: Sentry Marketing Group

August 31, 2015

Our recent trek through the history of restaurants got us thinking – what about hotels?  Some of the oldest restaurants were originally established as ways to feed travelers staying at inns, so what about those inns?  How did the practice of paying for a place to stay get started and how long has this been going on?

Hotels in History

It is natural to assume that the hospitality industry was born and grew up alongside the ability and inclination of human beings to travel further and further from their homes – mostly for economic and religious purposes during the latter part of the first and early part of the second millennia AD.  Interestingly enough, though, the first hotels on record were a little more like today’s resorts than they were like modern hotel chains.  In both Greco-Roman and early Asian civilizations, buildings specifically designed to house visitors were built around springs and thermal baths, where people would come for rest and recuperation.  Sound familiar?

It wasn’t until much later—during Europe’s medieval period—that the precursor to the modern traveler’s hotel or motel started to become common.  Until then, travelers, who were few and fairly far between, would mostly stay in the homes of local residents, making some small offering of food, coin, or a bit of work in exchange for a place to sleep and a warm meal.  It was also possible to find accommodation at Abbeys and monasteries, which could be found all along most pilgrimage routes.

Of course, as people started exploring the world, first with horses and then with ships, travel became much more common, especially among merchants.  Travelers’ Inns could be found scattered throughout Europe as early as the 12^th century and by the 1700s, roadhouses, or coach houses—inns with space to park your coach and feed and house, or even change out, your horses—began to pop up, eventually forming a chains, with establishments spaced evenly at about the distance of a day’s ride.  Meanwhile, Marco Polo noted during his trips to the “Far East” in the 1200s a network of inns that had been established throughout China to house traveling merchants.  Similar places, called caravanserais, were also known to exist throughout the Middle East.

So, by the 1200s, one could pay for a place to stay pretty much anywhere that trade had been established, and as those areas spread, so did the increasingly profitable hotel business.  Today, there are hundreds of thousands of hotels, motels, B&Bs, hostels as well as more creative accommodation spaces around the world (sleeping capsule, anyone?).  Next year, the global hotel business is forecasted to generate more than $500 billion in revenue.

Oldest Hotels

Most of the hotels that have been consistently operating the longest are found in Japan and were established around holy springs more than 1200 years ago.  The oldest European hotels, by contrast, only date back about 900 years.  Still, we think that’s plenty old to be impressive.

Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan and Houshi

There are two hotels in Japan that have at various times been considered the oldest hotels in the world.  Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan in Hayakawa, Yamanashi Prefecture was established in 705 AD and has now been pretty certainly determined to be the oldest, but its contemporary, Houshi in the Awazu Onsen area of Ishikawa Prefecture, established just 13 years later, deserves mention, as well.  Not only are these the two oldest hotels in the world, as such they are two of the oldest continuously functioning businesses on the planet.  Even more remarkable, both are still operated by the same families that opened them more than a millennium ago.

Zum Roten Baeren

Zum Roten Baeren, “The Red Bear” in English, is considered the oldest hotel in Europe.  Originally built as a mansion in the middle of nowhere in 1120, the owners, only actually began offering rooms in the guest house to travelers around 1311, though, given the customs of the times, it is likely that travelers stayed overnight from the beginning.  Over time, the town of Freiburg built up around the house and inn, and the house itself also became part of the hotel.  It has managed to survive through plague, revolutions, and three major wars.  The basement even still features some of the original artwork and architecture.

The Olde Bell

Another European hotel known for being really old is The Olde Bell Hurley, England.  Unlike The Red Bear, The Olde Bell was originally opened as a guest and carriage house, in 1135, to house pilgrims on their way the St. Benedict priory.  It has, of course, since been renovated many times and is now quite posh.  But one can still see its origins in its edifice, as well as a secret tunnel that leads to the priory.  During World War II, the hotel served as a meeting place for Winston Churchill and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the tunnel is rumored to have been a staging ground for the overthrow of King James in the 17^th century.  Coincidentally, another of England’s oldest hotels shares the same name, but opened in Malmesbury, about 100 miles away, nearly a century later.

Historic U.S. hotels

As might be expected, the oldest continuously existing hotels in the U.S. are significantly younger than their European or Asian counterparts.  Most were not established until the late 1800s, when the American hotel business exploded as the country made its determined march West.  Interestingly, several of the oldest restaurants in the U.S. were established alongside inns, but, while the restaurants persist, the associated inns no longer exist. Some of the oldest hotels in the U.S. include:

The Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, MI, est. 1887

Hotel Del Coronado, San Diego, CA, est. 1888

Concord’s Colonial Inn, Concord, MA, est. 1889

Lake Yellowstone Hotel & Cabins, Yellowstone National Park, WY, est. 1891

 

Image of Zum Roten Baeren by joergens.mi (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image of The Olde Bell by Colin Smith CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons