The Glamour of Hotels

Hotels (and I include bed and breakfast, pubs, boarding houses) are intended as places for you to stay temporarily when you have no home of your own nearby.

Depending on your position you could be poor and homeless and grateful for a humble roof and a bed, economy minded and content to accept plain accomodation or wealthy (or on a business account) enough to demand a high level of comfort and service.

To meet these needs, hotels provide facilities from basic boarding houses through comfortable bed and breakfast to luxurious hotels. And to attract your custom one of the most important decisions is the name of the hotel.

When booking a hotel we consider the connotations of the name. Does it appeal to us because it uses the name of a place that we like, or does its name make us think of bad experiences?

Walking along the promenade in Blackpool (what connotations does that have for you?) I noted the following hotels:

What connotations do these names have for you?

If you are not familiar with the word look it up and determine its origins

To help you, here are some suggested connotations and connections you might find for these names. Can you link the name to any of these connotations or meanings?

Which connotations are most common? Which are not there at all?

Further down the Promenade is a place called the Merrie England Bar. Any comments on its connotations for you?

Use a local directory to provide names of hotels and list them. Think about the connotations they have for you. Do you think they are suitable names for their situation? Does it help to call a hotel in Blackpool by the name of a London club? What else might you call it?

If you don't have a directory available here is another list of hotels: