Most modern hotel rooms will include private bathrooms (meaning they can only be accessed from the rooms and are intended to be used by the guests staying in the rooms only), which will be fitted with a sink, toilet and shower or bathtub (or both). This type of arrangement, called ensuite, has become commonplace in properties across all standards, although some hotels even in developed countries continue to offer rooms with shared bathrooms. Such bathrooms are usually located in common hallways and are intended for use by all occupants of the rooms in a given floor. Often a hotel room that is not ensuite will still include a sink with running water or even also a toilet. Although not common, a few hotels in older buildings have some rooms with private bathrooms that are not ensuite; instead, your key will give only you access to a bathroom down the corridor.

Some hotels also offer bathrooms especially fitted to cater for the needs of guests with disabilities. This includes special handlebars and supports, a folded seat in a shower stall and other fitments to enable comfortable use by a person with limited mobility, e.g. the elderly or infirm or those using a wheelchair. Guests requiring such facilities should make sure a property provides them and communicate this need at the time of booking.

The following terms are based on the North American standard for mattress sizes, which have been adopted by the hospitality industry worldwide due to the dominance of American hotel chains:

• A king bed (72–76 inches/183–193 cm wide) is nearly square; it provides more than ample room for two people, maybe three if they're small or very friendly
• A queen bed (60 inches/154 cm wide) provides enough room for two adults to sleep comfortably
• A full-size bed or double bed (54 inches/137 cm wide) is like a small queen; two people will find it slightly cramped, while a single person will find it quite roomy
• A single bed or twin bed (38 inches/96.5 cm) is half the width of a king, only really suitable for one person.

Specific dimensions of beds and mattresses can vary between countries (up to 20 cm, which is quite significant); in addition, the terminology used to denote them can be either wildly different or confusingly similar. The lengths (from head to toe) are usually 74 to 80 inches (188 to 203 cm) but it can also vary between countries as well.

Some hotels also have connecting rooms, which are separate units that can be connected with a door between them. Those can be useful for groups or families wanting to stay together with access to each other's room, but not sharing one. When not in use as such, they are often rented out as regular rooms with the connecting doors locked. A downside of staying in a connecting room is that noises from the other connecting room are sometimes more audible.

Suites are sets of separate chambers rented by a hotel as a common accommodation unit. A suite would usually include one or more bedrooms and some other rooms, such as a living room or sitting room, sometimes with a sofa that converts into a bed. Dining, office and kitchen facilities are also added in many suites. Suites generally offer more space and furniture than a standard hotel room.

A suite is usually provided as either a luxurious type of accommodation: one that enables more people (e.g. a family) to stay in a single unit, or one that provides for a more convenient extended stay. Often, these are marketed to businesspeople and convention delegates with the second room serving as a small office or meeting space.

In hotel buildings comprising several stories, rooms on upper floors are often deemed more attractive as they provide a better view, more privacy (less chance of anybody being able to glimpse into the room through the window from outside) and are farther away from any ground level noises. This especially applies to hotels in metropolitan areas, located at busy areas with heavy traffic, often in tall towers surrounded by other buildings. A reverse pattern applies to two-story motels, where ground-floor tenants may park at the room and unload baggage directly instead of dragging luggage up a flight of stairs.

It is also possible that some rooms in a hotel have better or worse views than others; one side of an oceanfront lodge may face a beach while the other rooms face a road or highway. A landmark, skyline, landscape or striking vista may be visible from only part of the hotel; some rooms may also have less access to daylight, facing an internal courtyard or a wall of another building.

Rooms deemed better with regard to views or lighting may be offered at increased rates and require a specific booking.

Some upscale hotels offer special executive or club rooms or suites with additional amenities. Often (but not always) the room price on premium executive floors includes access to an executive or club lounge. The lounges include comfortable seating space and leisure amenities such as international TV, press and concierge service. It is common for a lounge to provide snacks and beverages at certain times or even throughout the day. Sometimes breakfast for guests on these floors is served at the lounge, while other guests have breakfast elsewhere in the hotel.

Lounges are often placed on higher floors of hotel buildings to provide better views. For convenience, the premium rooms are often put on a separate floor or floors (named executive floors or similarly) with direct unrestricted access to the lounge; access to those floors is restricted to guests staying in those rooms. Naming of such facilities, availability, amenities and mode of operation vary.

See also: Tobacco

Hotels usually designate rooms as "smoking" and "non-smoking" (referring to tobacco/cigarette/cigar smoking) to enable non-smoking guests to enjoy rooms not tainted with the particular odours and other side effects of smoking. If either the absence of smoking residuals or the ability to smoke in the room is important to you, it is best to make sure your room is smoking or non-smoking while booking. If you believe you might have been assigned the incorrect type of room, contact the front desk of your hotel and ask to be moved to an appropriate category.

Many modern hotels, however, do not condone smoking at all within the hotel property, not only because of higher demand for strictly non-smoking rooms, but also because of modern smoke detectors that can be activated by somebody smoking. Thus, smoking in your room is not advisable unless you expressly confirm with hotel staff that this is possible and will not trigger a smoke alarm. Laws in many countries also strictly forbid smoking anywhere within the hotel building anyway.

Hotels may additionally offer meal service included in the price. Common terms include:

• Continental breakfast. A limited morning selection of pastries, muffins, cereals, coffee or juice, usually offered by economy, limited service hotels where there is no restaurant or kitchen on-site to serve a hot meal. Budget chains often include this in the room price.
• Bed and breakfast (B&B). The morning meal is included. This may range considerably from a simple roll and coffee to an extensive buffet. The term may also refer to smaller establishments which are an alternative to hotels.
• Half board (aka half pension, demi-pension, modified American plan). A hotel rate that includes breakfast and one additional meal, typically dinner.
• Full board (aka full pension, full American plan). A hotel rate in which three meals a day are included in the price.
• All-inclusive. All meals and most drinks are included. The list of "free" drinks is usually limited to non-alcoholic and sometimes inexpensive alcoholic beverages. Branded and premium alcoholic drinks are often not provided or are available at extra cost.

A few hotels deliver the food to the hotel room, mostly with additional fee or obligatory tip.

A "full-service hotel" is an American term referring to a hotel providing extensive service to guests and generally being staffed around the clock. Many of the services provided incur extra charges over the room rate, but it is their availability that is referred to as "full-service". A full-service hotel will usually include a front desk and room service available 24 hours a day, an on-site restaurant with upscale cuisine and service, and some leisure facilities dependent on country and area standards (most often a fitness room and a swimming pool). Full-service hotels are usually relatively expensive, and their basic room rates rarely include anything but accommodation itself, with every additional service incurring comparably steep charges. On the other hand, rooms in full-service hotels will usually feature many amenities not found in rooms in cheaper hotels. A business hotel is a loosely defined term; it tends to be a full-service (typically 4-star) hotel at a business district, an airport, a convention center or some other place likely to attract business travellers.

Full-service hotels will usually be rated as four- or five-star, or have a comparably high local rating. This category includes a broad range of facilities, from business-oriented international chain hotels to ultra-luxury boutique hotels. Some of the most popular international brands of full-service hotels include:

• Marriott
• Hilton
• Sheraton
• Sofitel
• Shangri-La
• Radisson
• Hyatt

Hotels referred to as "limited-service" or "select-service" will feature only some of the services and facilities provided by full-service hotels. These American terms are not formally defined and used quite liberally, covering a broad range of facilities. In general, as the names suggest, these hotels will not offer some of the services and facilities full-service hotels provide (for example limited or no room service, or even no restaurant on premises), and the rooms in such hotels are simpler and have fewer amenities.

Popular limited or select service hotel brands include:

• ibis Hotels
• Holiday Inn Express
• Ramada

Properties referred to as budget or economy hotels are geared towards providing accommodation at the lowest possible price. This is achieved by limiting the facilities and services available to guests and making hotel rooms smaller and simpler to fit more of them into a property at a lower cost. Many new economy hotels are purpose-built properties optimized with regard to investment and operating costs. There are also older hotels which position themselves as economy hotels as their standards have fallen behind traveller expectations as the property aged.

Some popular brands of economy hotels include:

• ibis budget, formerly known as "Etap hotels", which are a very simplified version of the regular ibis hotels
• Premiere Classe, an equivalent brand from another French hotel company
• easyHotels, started by the same entrepreneur that started the low-cost easyJet airline, which charge extra for every service, amenity or perk beyond basic accommodation

As the construction of new motels has largely ended, former motel brands like Motel 6 and Super 8 are migrating to the economy, limited service hotel sector.

Further information: Motels

Motels, motor hotels, motor inns or motor lodges are an inexpensive form of limited-service hotel which allow motorists direct access to their rooms from a car park. Most were built before economy, limited-service hotel chains became commonplace in the early 1980s. Simple single-story or two-story buildings with few shared amenities and no room service, these occasionally have an on-site restaurant or an outdoor pool. Rooms are typically at a 1 or 2-star level and are self-contained with a private lavatory, washbasin and shower/bath "en suite". A few "efficiency" units include a small kitchen in-room at extra cost.

In Portugal, Spain, Italy and much of South and Central America, the term refers to an establishment which caters primarily to adultery. In German-speaking countries, the roadhouse motel (rasthaus) is an ordinary economy, limited-service hotel.

In its original meaning, an inn was an establishment providing lodging, food and drink to clients travelling by road. Before the widespread deployment of passenger rail, coaching inns served as periodic rest stops (often in a string of small villages built at 10-12 mile intervals) which accommodated for limitations imposed by horse-drawn travel.

In the motorcar era, marketers have diluted the meaning of terms such as "inn" and "lodge". Any establishment which offers any of the functions of the original stagecoach inns, from a motel with no dining room, to a pub or tavern with no lodging, to a full-service hotel with a restaurant and bar is likely to proclaim itself an "inn".

Airport hotels are in suburban locations suited mostly towards guests arriving or departing from the airport, transit passengers with a significant layover between connecting flights and airline crews. Airport hotels may be connected to an airport terminal or located off-site with shuttle service between the hotel and the airport. Airport hotel strips are constructed in suburbs, often with limited and complicated access to anything but the airport itself, and are prone to aircraft noise (although most newly built airport hotels are sufficiently soundproofed). Airport hotels rarely provide especially desirable room views; serving a utilitarian function, they rarely enjoy the same level of investment in design and facilities as their city centre or resort counterparts. Hotel designers are also restricted in the height of buildings constructed in close proximity to runways and flight paths. Still, airport hotels can be considered for conferences and other events within the airport area.

Transit hotels, a specialised form of airport hotel, are located inside the terminal in airside positions where travellers may enter from arriving international flights without passing through the host country's immigration controls. A transit hotel is intended as short-stay accommodation (sometimes as little as five or six hours) for air travellers who are in transit and plan to board another international flight out without leaving the host airport.

Due to their short-stay market, amenities are variable but often limited. Most or all provide the basics — a bed, desk, toilet, shower and Internet access. A few may be tiny capsule hotels; others offer premium facilities like gyms and spas.

Those hotels are designed to cater for the needs of travellers staying over an extended period of time, anything from four nights to weeks or even months. As such, they straddle the divide between hotels and apartments for rent. The differences are generally that an aparthotel or extended-stay property:

1. has been designed solely for the purpose, or converted to suit such purpose, while many rentable apartments are simply parts of regular residential buildings
2. contains only rentable rooms, there are no fixed tenants and usually no other uses of the buildings apart from rentable rooms, suites and apartments and common services for the guests
3. provide a certain level of shared services, depending on the exact standard of the property, which usually includes a front desk/reception, housekeeping and some measure of on-site gastronomy

The differences between an extended-stay and regular hotel property usually include:

1. there is a broader selection of larger rooms and suites than in regular hotels which focus on smaller, single-bedroom units
2. rooms and suites usually include a kitchenette / food preparation area for travellers to cater for themselves (regardless of whether other gastronomy options are provided on site)

Such hotels are generally geared towards two groups of travellers. One includes business travellers who are away on business for extended periods of time but do not completely relocate from their permanent residence. Those properties are frequently found within or around cities that are business centres, and are often located next to central business districts, business parks or places a business traveller might want to be close to, as well as being well-connected to transportation infrastructure (road/highway network, airports, railway stations). The other is geared toward leisure travellers wanting to spend a vacation in one place and cater for themselves partially or totally. They are most often found in leisure destinations and may contain fewer business-oriented facilities, while being more oriented towards the needs of travelling families.

Examples of extended-stay hotel chains and brands are:

• Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites from Marriott
• Staybridge Suites from InterContinental Hotels Group
• Homewood Suites by Hilton and Home2 Suites by Hilton
• Adagio and Suite Novotel from Accor
• Hyatt House (formerly known as Summerfield Suites)

A "boutique hotel" originally signified a unique property, often a small upscale independent, which was not designed to fit a predetermined format or modern hotel chain's branding. The qualities associated with the category were a certain degree of luxury as well as small size; the "boutique" property was a specialised operator which served a relatively small number of voyagers but served them well.

As this term became popular, with generally positive connotations which can enhance the status of a varying array of properties, it has been applied liberally by the hospitality industry. While "boutique" originally inferred a luxury property in a small size, a traveller may find a hotel lacks either to some extent or completely. The status as an independent alternative to chain hotels is also being diluted both by existing property operators joining an association or chain, and by hotel operating companies acquiring or creating boutique hotels themselves.

Brands created by large hospitality companies specifically to extend their portfolios into boutique hotels include:

• The Luxury Collection by Marriott
• Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts by Hilton
• MGallery by Accor

Unlike established upscale chain brands which share some boutique hotel-like characteristics, the boutique-specific brands usually do not take precedence over the original name of the property. The chain name is featured in some communications, but in a secondary order.

In many cities, there is one famous old hotel, usually going back to the Victorian era, that was historically the place to stay. Often, these hotels served cross-country rail travellers in an era long before the "jet set" and reliable commercial aviation. Some became landmarks in their own right.

Of course, the newer luxury hotels may have better facilities, but the old place has cachet.

See also: Albergo Diffuso

The idea of scattered hotels got its start in the early 1980s in Italy. The goal was to revive tourism in an earthquake-damaged corner of northeastern Italy in the 1970s. A "Diffuso hotel" consist of different accommodations in different buildings scattered throughout the village. For those who do not love staying at a hotel, an Albergo Diffuso is a balance between a hotel and a house.

A capsule hotel is a type of hotel developed in Japan that provides guest accommodation in modular plastic or fiberglass blocks (called "capsules") of roughly 2 m (6 ft 7 in) by 1 m (3 ft 3 in) by 1.25 m (4 ft 1 in). A capsule is basically only suitable for laying or sleeping in it, although some also include a television, an electronic console, and wireless internet connection for guests to relax or entertain themselves before going to sleep.

Capsule hotels consist of multiple capsule units places side by side and stacked upon each other to maximize space utilization. Communal facilities are usually very limited and include shared washrooms and luggage lockers (as there is basically no room for luggage in a capsule), but sometimes also restaurants or vending machines. Capsule hotels are intended to provide cheap and basic overnight accommodation for guests not requiring the services offered by more conventional hotels. They are rarely found outside of Japan, though a few hostels in other countries have adopted similar pod-style bunks.

See also: Resorts

A resort hotel is a site with accommodation, dining, shopping and recreation, separate from the local community, in some cases in a gated community. A resort can be integrated with a main attraction, such as a ski lift system, golf course, casinos or a theme park.

While resort hotels give fewer opportunities to explore the land, they are useful for conferences and family getaways, and decrease the crime risk. In some places, such as Cancun, Phoenix, Las Vegas, etc; resorts are the destination in themselves where guests spend their entire vacation/holiday without leaving to explore the land or to visit nearby attractions outside the resort grounds.

A "hotel chain" is usually meant to represent a collection of hotels under the same brand, management or ownership. Similar expressions exist in other languages (e.g. "Hotelkette" in Germany, which is a direct analogue), while in some languages the reference to network is used. A hotel chain would usually use a specific brand which becomes a part of the name of every hotel in the chain, and has all the hotels follow a number of standards. Do note, however, that the amount of uniformity and standardization within hotel chains can vary, and a hotel chain may include very different properties of different standards under a common brand.

While not obvious to travellers it is worth noting that the hotel's brand does not imply its management or ownership. A hotel may be owned by a separate entity and operated by another, unrelated directly to the company providing the brand name by means of franchise agreement. Often hotel chains contain a mix of properties owned and operated by the "mother company", only managed by it and ones that are completely franchised out. For example, most Hilton hotels around the world are not owned, or even operated, by Hilton Worldwide.

Therefore, three types of businesses evolved in conjunction with operating hotels:

• Hotel chain operators, which often act as master franchisees providing brand concepts, names, standards and often management guidance to individual hotel operators. They may provide local management to all, some or none of the hotels within their chains; often the chain merely sets standards and inspections while hotel management companies handle daily operations for individual hotel properties. The chain provides marketing, advertising and a central reservation system.
• Hotel management companies, which operate the hotel by employing the staff and using infrastructure to provide hotel services, collecting revenues and splitting them between themselves, the hotel chain operator / franchisor and the owner of the property
• Real estate holding companies, which own the hotel properties. This is often split between developers, who basically create hotels, building them from scratch or refurbishing existing buildings with the help and guidance of hotel chain operators and hotel management companies, and investment companies, who buy already operating hotel properties from developers. In some cases, the same franchisees may own multiple hotels with different brand affiliations for each.

Sometimes a large hospitality company would have separate entities performing each of those roles, which may or may not cooperate on specific properties depending on circumstances and needs. Travellers are almost always only presented with the name of the hotel chain operator and/or the specific brand and it may not be obvious who actually operates and owns the hotel. This may or may not be relevant, as in some chains owned and operated properties might be held to different standards from franchised properties.

Many hotel chain operators choose to operate multiple hotel chains and brands to cater to a wider range of travellers by including properties in multiple price ranges; for instance, a property which does not meet the standards to be a Days Inn can be marketed by the same chain as a Knights Inn. A chain normally associated with full-service hotels can launch an "express" or "econo" marque under different branding to enter the economy limited service price range, where a hotel only has the most basic motel-like amenities, without undermining its core brand. This form of market segmentation often also serves as a means for franchisors to circumvent restrictions where a franchisee is contractually guaranteed a minimum distance between hotels or motels of the same franchised brand.

Hotel Loyalty Programs are loyalty programmes operated by hotel chains, that are in many ways similar to frequent flyer programmes. The purpose of Hotel loyalty programs is to ensure that a hotel company retains its clients as frequent guests by offering benefits for staying as a guest or booking conference rooms and facilities at their hotels. The basic idea is every eligible hotel night or every dollar you spend at hotel brands participating in the corporate hotel loyalty program earns points, which can be exchanged for rewards like hotel rooms, room upgrades and airline miles. Hotel co-branded credit cards are a common strategy for earning hotel loyalty points and benefits when not staying at hotels.

An additional incentive for a hotel frequent guest is premium membership. Each corporate hotel loyalty program has its own criteria for elite membership. Hotel loyalty program elite membership is generally earned by a frequent guest when certain thresholds are met for the number of hotel stays, hotel nights, or money spent. A hotel stay is defined as consecutive nights at the same hotel under the same name, regardless of the number of different reservations.

Elite membership in a hotel loyalty program is generally based on activity within a calendar year. Sleep at the loyalty program member hotels for sufficient nights or stays, or spend enough money and you'll get a silver/gold/platinum/diamond hotel program membership card entitling you to various perks, such as hotel points bonuses, lounge access, free upgrades, guaranteed rooms, etc. High level elite membership in the major hotel chain loyalty programs, generally with the benefit of complimentary room upgrades, takes between 25 and 75 hotel nights in a 12-month period.

Some hotel chains, particularly in the luxury segment, operate programs that do not award points, but offer frequent guest recognition with added value benefits such as complimentary room upgrades, restaurant and spa discounts, and additional amenities in recognition of the loyal guest.

International hotel chains are a popular choice with business travellers, as they generally offer standardized predictability. The downside for leisure travel is that they are rarely very exciting or exotic, and there can still be considerable variation within the brand.

The following lists major international hotel chains only, i.e. those with significant presence (~500 hotels or more) on all or almost all inhabited continents. Local chains can be found in individual country articles.

• Accor is a French company operating thousands of hotels throughout the world, but with relatively limited presence in North America. Accor runs the Le Club Accorhotels loyalty scheme, offering the possibility to exchange points for miles with most frequent flyer programmes. A similar programme is operated for business travellers.
  Some of their brands are:
  • Sofitel luxury hotels
  • MGallery brand used for upscale boutique hotels
  • Pullman upscale, full-service hotels emphasizing modern design
  • Novotel mid-range hotels with a high level of standardization. Suite Novotels are ones offering extended-stay features
  • Mercure mid-range hotels with more variation between properties
  • Accor Vacation Club timeshares
  • Adagio extended-stay properties, with the Adagio Access budget-oriented sub-brand
  • ibis hotels, the very popular range of inexpensive hotels offering reasonable standard, now encompassing three sub-brands:
    • the "red pillow" standard ibis hotels, which are basically properties purpose-built to ibis standards, which are the same throughout the world
    • the "green pillow" ibis Styles, which are most often conversions from other brands and thus offer much less standardization, but in turn always feature free WiFi and breakfast included in the room rate. The brand was previously called all seasons
    • the "blue pillow" ibis budget hotels, which are very basic properties with minimum comforts and facilities, aimed at budget travellers. This brand includes rebranded former Etap Hotels
• Best Western International is the world's largest hotel brand with more than 4,200 hotels in 80 countries. "The Best Western Motels" were founded in 1946 as a referral chain, a co-operative owned by individual member hotels which each display their own local name alongside the chain's branding. The chain itself does not own any hotel properties. They place little emphasis on standardization across properties, although certain corporate standards have to be kept by all Best Western hotels. In the new millennium, they introduced Best Western Plus and Best Western Premier designation for properties offering higher standards than regular Best Westerns. Their Best Western Rewards loyalty programme has partnerships with various airlines and travel service providers in different countries.
• Radisson Hotel Group, a combo of U.S.-based Carlson and Sweden-based Rezidor, is now owned by a Chinese conglomerate. Their brands include:
  • Quorvus Collection
  • Radisson upscale hotels. The brand had an offshoot, formerly called Radisson SAS and co-operated with SAS Scandinavian Airlines, now branded Radisson BLU.
  • Park Plaza full-service hotels - actually operated under a marketing agreement by a separate European company which also runs art'otels
  • Park Inn by Radisson mid-range standardized hotels
  • Country Inns & Suites by Carlson, limited-service properties mostly found in North America and India

    

• Choice Hotels International is a company started in the USA, with a strong presence there and in Canada and Nordic Countries in Europe, but much less prominent everywhere else. Their loyalty programme, Choice privileges, has point exchange partnerships with almost all airlines operating in the United States, but very few elsewhere. Some of their brands are:
  • Ascend upscale hotels in North America and Scandinavia
  • Clarion full-service hotels
  • Cambria, full-service hotels
  • Clarian Point and Quality Inn mid-range hotels
  • Comfort limited-service hotels
  • Sleep Inn, Rodeway Inn and Econo Lodge economy hotels and motels
  • Woodspring Suites, Mainstay Suites and Suburban extended-stay properties
• Hilton Worldwide is perhaps the most known American hotel company focusing on upscale properties. Over time, they have built a selection of brands:
  • Waldorf-Astoria luxury boutique, usually historic, hotels, including many grand old hotels
  • Conrad luxury hotels, named after the company's founder, Conrad Hilton
  • LXR, Tapestry Collection, and Curio Collection luxury hotels in unique settings with unique names
  • Hilton, and Signia upscale hotels
  • Embassy Suites full-service all-suite hotels known for free full breakfasts and evening socials - historically in grand atriums.
  • Doubletree full-service hotels
  • Canopy modern full service hotels with modern technology
  • Hilton Garden Inn mid-range hotels
  • Hampton by Hilton / Hampton Inn and Tru limited-service hotels
  • Homewood Suites and Home2 extended-stay brands
  • Hilton Grand Vacations brand of timeshare properties
  • Their Hilton Honors loyalty scheme has partnerships with most airlines and travel service providers worldwide.
• Hyatt Hotels focuses on the upper end of the market and is highly concentrated in North America, but expanding globally. It is relatively the smallest of the American-based global hospitality groups by number of properties. The company brands include:
  • Hyatt, Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency upscale full-service hotels
  • Andaz boutique hotels
  • Hyatt Place a limited-service brand
  • Hyatt House extended-stay brand, formerly called Summerfield Suites
  • Hyatt Residence Club brand of timeshare properties
  • Hyatt Gold Passport loyalty programme

• InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), based in the United Kingdom, lays claim to being the largest hotel group by number of rooms. Their brands include:
  • InterContinental luxury hotels
  • Indigo boutique hotels
  • Crowne Plaza full-service hotels
  • Holiday Inn mid-range hotels
  • Holiday Inn Express limited-service brand, offering free breakfast and WiFi worldwide
  • Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites extended-stay brands
  • IHG Rewards Club loyalty program, which offers free WiFi at IHG properties to all members
• Groupe du Louvre is a French company which operates various chains of hotels of various standards, with a loose association between them and a focus on Europe with only a token North American presence with singular Golden Tulip and Concorde hotels. The group members are:
  • Golden Tulip Hospitality Group, operating hotels on six continents under three brands:
    • Tulip Inn, offering limited-service accommodation at a three-star standard
    • Golden Tulip, which is a notch higher and aspires to four stars
    • Royal Tulip, a new concept of full-service, five-star hotels
    • There is a common loyalty programme run for all Tulip-branded hotels, called Flavours, which rewards frequent travellers and enables them to earn miles for their stays with selected SkyTeam and oneworld airlines.
  • In addition to that, they operate three French hotel brands directly controlled by Louvre Hotels:
    • Premiere Classe brand of budget, "one star" properties, competing primarily with Accors' ibis budget, located mainly in France, with a few hotels in other European countries
    • Campanile, a brand of modest two or three-star hotels located mostly on the outskirts of cities and catering to motorized travellers. They can be found in most Western European countries and in Poland.
    • Kyriad is a chain of hotels equivalent to Golden Tulip in France. Some properties of higher standard are designated Kyriad Prestige
  • The Concorde Hotels & Resorts chain of luxury hotels is "affiliated" with Louvre Hotels and manages a small number of boutique hotels.
  • While there is no loyalty programme for guests of Premiere Classe, Campanile, Kyriad and Concorde hotels, they can all earn miles for their stays with the FlyingBlue frequent flyer programme of AirFrance-KLM.

• Marriott International is an American-based hospitality group focusing on luxury and upscale segments with their numerous brands:
  • The Ritz-Carlton top-level luxury hotels brand
  • The Luxury Collection of boutique and landmark luxury hotels
  • Bulgari Hotels & Resorts luxury design hotels branded by the designer label
  • JW Marriott, Marriott, Renaissance and St. Regis luxury hotels
  • EDITION and Autograph Collection boutique hotels
  • W hotels, a brand of trendy, modern design-themed upscale full-service hotels
  • Westin, Sheraton, and Le Meridien upscale full-service hotels
  • Gaylord Hotels in the USA, which, unlike the name may suggest, does not specifically cater to LGBT travellers but is rather a brand of very large convention centres and theme resorts acquired by Marriott
  • AC hotels by Marriott chain in Mediterranean Europe
  • Courtyard by Marriott brand of mid-range hotels
  • Four Points by Sheraton, a limited-service offshoot of the Sheraton brand
  • SpringHill Suites and Fairfield Inn & Suites limited-service brands, primarily found in North America
  • aloft, a brand similarly emphasizing modern design and trendiness, but in the limited-service market
  • Marriott Executive Apartments, TownPlace Suites, Residence Inn extended-stay brands
  • element extended stay hotels with an environmental theme and eco-friendly features
  • Marriott Vacation Club International, Grand Residences Club and The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club brands of timeshare properties
  • Marriott Bonvoy Rewards loyalty programme
• Wyndham Hotel Group based in the USA, has amassed a huge portfolio of brands through its many acquisitions under its past guise of Cendant Corporation:
  • Wyndham full-service hotels, including sub brands Grand Wyndham and Wyndham Garden
  • Wingate by Wyndham mid-range limited-service hotels
  • Hawthorne Suites extended-stay hotels
  • TRYP by Wyndham, urban hotels in several European and South American cities operated under a franchise agreement with Sol Melia Hotels of Spain
  • Ramada Worldwide brand with sub-brands like Ramada encore, Ramada Limited or Ramada Plaza
  • Dream Hotels, Night Hotels and Planet Hollywood brands of themed / designer properties
  • A plethora of inexpensive hotel and motel brands with presence mostly in North America, including the iconic Howard Johnson, Days Inn, Super 8, Knights Inn, Baymont Inn and Suites, Microtel Inn and Suites and Travelodge (in North America only, Travelodge in the UK is an unrelated company)
  • Several brands of resorts and holiday villages offering holiday rental properties under the umbrella of Wyndham Vacation Rentals
  • Wyndham Vacation Ownership timeshare brand, with several sub-brands
  • RCI and The Registry Collection, offering "vacation exchange" services to timeshare owners
  • Wyndham Rewards loyalty scheme

There are also other hotel chains, focusing on top-level luxury hotels only, that have a limited number of properties but remain world-known names for their high standards, global reach and landmark properties. Some of those are:

• Fairmont Raffles Hotels International is a group operating three hotel brands: Raffles, Fairmont and Swissôtel
• Four Seasons with a hundred hotels around the world.
• Mandarin Oriental is a brand originating in Hong Kong.