From Inns to Hotels

People on the road have historically needed places to park themselves too. With your team, explore the history of inns and hotels, including what might be the oldest hotel in the world. What differentiates a hotel from earlier forms of accommodation, such as post houses?

In a mountain valley in Japan, one family has rented rooms beside the same hot spring since the year 705 — fifty-two generations of innkeepers, still taking bookings tonight.

Key concepts

Xenia: In ancient Greece, sheltering a traveller was a religious duty rather than a service. A host fed a stranger before asking his name, because Zeus was thought to travel in disguise, and turning someone away was an offence against the gods, not bad business.

Every work — at a glance

History of Inns and Hotels (history)

The six-step timeline from Sumerian trade-city lodging to the postwar chain hotel.
Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan (inn)

The Japanese hot-spring inn founded in 705 CE, widely cited as the world's oldest hotel.
The Caravanserai (building type)

The fortified Silk Road courtyard inn: goods in the middle, travellers in cells around the edge.
The Post House (building type)

The horse-changing stop that served the journey, not the guest — Rome's mansio and mutatio, rebuilt for the mail.
The Savoy Hotel (hotel)

London, 1889: electric light, lifts, private bathrooms, Ritz and Escoffier — the night as a product.

What to know

01
What separates a hotel from what came before: the night itself is the product. A post house sold you fresh horses so you could leave; a monastery gave you a bed as charity; an inn sold one as a sideline to its bar. A hotel sells comfort, privacy and service as the reason to stop — which is why it borrowed its name from hôtel, French for a grand private house.
02
Lodging has always followed money rather than scenery. The first formalized inns appeared in Sumerian and Babylonian trade cities, caravanserais lined the merchant routes, and the grand hotels of the 1800s went up beside railway stations. Map the oldest places to sleep and you have mapped the oldest routes to somewhere.

Across subjects

The inn gave literature its oldest stage. Because it throws strangers together for one night, any story can be told there: Chaucer's pilgrims meet at the Tabard Inn and swap tales all the way to Canterbury, a whole book made possible by a room where nobody knows anybody.

Theme connection

Is a bed for a stranger a duty or a product? For most of history it was owed — by the gods' rules, or the monastery's — and refusing one was shameful. Then it got a price list. Paying is honest and open to anyone; but the guest became a customer, and gratitude stopped mattering.

Practice

Check what you've read

Pick the best answer — you'll see why each option is right or wrong.

Question 1 of 2

HISWhat is the name for the 8th-century Japanese inn often called the world's oldest hotel?

Question 2 of 2

HISSomeone who believes a bed for a stranger was once a sacred duty rather than a trade would point to —