Extended-Stay Motels

Background and History

A hotel is a business where both food and lodging are available for public guests. Hotels may be commercial, semicommercial, residential, or transient establishments. Commercial hotel establishments in metropolitan areas typically provide services to business travelers for conferences and meetings, offering large rooms, various dining options, shopping, guest activities, and amenities. Semicommercial hotels differ from commercial hotels in that they may be maintained by nonprofit organizations. A hotel is designated residential if tenants are allowed to stay more than a month. Often, for these residents, sales taxes are relaxed. In addition, these hotels may offer meals and housekeeping services to tenants.

A motor hotel, more commonly referred to as a motel, is a transient type of hotel that provides highway-oriented lodging for motorists, where rooms have direct access to an outside parking lot area. According to automotive historian Michael Karl Witzel, these types of hotels were established in the early 1900s as a reaction to the growing automobile and traveling industries serving tourists and vacationing families. Motel historians Eric Jakle, Keith Sculle, and Jefferson Rogers documented the changing development of motels from simple roadside mom-and-pop establishments to franchised, prepackaged, and standardized accommodation commodities. Similarly, room sizes, designs, and decor have varied considerably throughout the years: some are single design spaces with one small bed, chair, table, and stove while other rooms of varied floor plans are equipped with more exquisite and homelike furnishings. Motel developers have continued to balance efficient functionality and cozy comfort to meet the needs of a diverse clientele of transient business-people, tourists, travelers, and local guests. Design efforts have included adding kitchenettes, pools, dining facilities, launderettes, and meeting rooms to appeal to a wider consumer base.

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