Mini hotels – this type of hotels is widely spread all over the world. The term «mini hotel»is most extensively used in Russia. However, there are different types of mini hotels. In Western Europe, especially in Great Britain, Spain and Italy as well as in several countries in Eastern Europe they are also called Bed and Breakfast hotels. The small amount of rooms and breakfast included - the main distinctive features of B & B hotels. In France, similar hotels are called chambre d'hôtes or «guest rooms». Their peculiarity is in their location. Сhambre d'hôtes were usually built in the centers of small villages to encourage the development of agritourism. In Germany, mini hotels are called pensions. Small rooms and the lack of registration desk are an ordinary thing for pensions.
There are also unique mini hotels. Among them - the famous Capsule hotels in Japan, the room size in which is equal to the size of the bed. There is a mini hotel Yotel at London Heathrow airport, located in close proximity to the registration desk. Its rooms were designed with the use of space technologies in order to provide customers with maximum comfort in minimal space. One room hotels can be found in Holland and Cambodia.
An overwhelming number of mini hotels have a <<three star>> class. The number of rooms in mini hotel is about 20-30 in average. Almost all of them offer daily rent. However, every country has its own standards concerning the hotel room capacity of mini hotel. For example, in Russia, according to the local tourist standards, a hotel can be considered as a mini hotel if the number of rooms does not exceed 50.
In many mini hotels living conditions are at the level of high-quality hotels. This situation is typical primarily for Russia. It was a big problem 15 years ago to find and book a good quality hotel at affordable prices. The situation was redressed by the mini hotels, construction of which does not require multimillion investments and that pays off faster than hotels with many rooms.
The market of mini-hotels in Russia and Eastern Europe is increasingly developing. In Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Kiev and other cities, mini-hotels average out 20-40% of the total number of hotels. In many large Russian cities such as Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Astrakhan mini hotels constitute the basis of hotel industry.
The main problem of mini hotels nowadays is that only few of them manage to raise their status up to 4-5 stars. The reason is that so far the requirements for certification for large and small hotels remain the same.
