Hotel or hostel? Whether for a weekend getaway or for a well-deserved vacation, traveling is one of the main leisure options. After choosing the destination and the type of travel, accommodation is the third most important aspect to resolve. If you search for accommodation in a locality, you will get a list with different prices and services. There is no other option than to be clear about the difference between a hotel and a hostel so that later we do not get an unpleasant surprise, either by not hiring what is expected or by ending up disbursing money that throws the trip budget overboard. Let’s go by parts.
According to the definition given by Les Roches, international school of management and hotel administration and tourism, “a hotel is an establishment that has been built and planned to provide accommodation to tourists and other travelers on a temporary basis”, which includes “services basics” in the rooms such as “bed, wardrobe, furniture” and almost always with “private bathroom, television and refrigerator”. In addition, hotels offer additional services to customers, such as bars, restaurants, swimming pools, gyms or nurseries.
Most hotels are classified from one to five stars, although the criteria for this classification differ from country to country. In Spain, for example, the system depends on each regional government, although in practice there are hardly any differences in criteria between establishments in different regions. Thus, for example, in a top-class hotel, a room will always have more than 17 square meters and a full bathroom of at least 5 square meters and will have air conditioning and heating, a telephone, a safe, and a minibar.
It must be taken into account that it is the hotel itself that establishes the number of stars, being responsible for complying with the requirements and services that are required according to the category. Les Roches establishes the following classification of hotels for guidance:
A hostel is a “hotel establishment of a lower category than the hotel”, according to the definition of the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE).
Inquiring online about the differences between a hotel and a hostel, in many cases we will obtain the same information: while a hotel offers private rooms, in a hostel we can find rooms shared by several people, between four and 20 clients in the same space, depending on what they specify. some publications; also the bathrooms are shared. However this is not entirely true.
It must be taken into account that there are several types of small lodgings, some of which do function as a kind of hostels with a community and youth character. Instead, many other hostels offer private rooms.
It is worth recovering some excerpts from the speech delivered in 2008 by the president of the Association of Lodging Entrepreneurs of the Community of Madrid (Aehcam), Jesús Martín Peinado, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the entity and in which he explains how it has changed the reality of hostels in recent years:
“Literature had positioned the hostel as accommodation, with few facilities and marginal guests,” explains Martín Peinado, before emphasizing the service these facilities provide today: “give accommodation to the public with medium purchasing power and make [destination Madrid] an affordable option for the tourist”. The president of Aehcam concludes that “the hostel facilities have undergone a substantial change. We came from rooms with few services, to offer today rooms with great detail, private bathroom, air conditioning and Internet connection. Just like any hotel. That’s what a hostel is about: a small hotel.”
Like hotels, hostels are also classified by stars, although the range goes from one to three stars depending on the quality and services of the establishment.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
