HotelChatter: In your new book, Hotel: An American History, you write that the hotel is "an internationally manifested aspect of modernity."  Can you elaborate on this?

Andrew K. Sandoval-Strausz: : Sure. I'm basically saying that the existence of hotels is part of what makes our world modern. The term "modernity" refers to about the last 200 years of history, which have been very different from all the centuries before for a number of reasons, including the rise of democracy, the development of market economies, advances in technology, and the idea that all people are created equal.

In my book I point out that the building of the first hotels, as well as the rapid growth of business and tourist travel, also began about 200 years ago and are therefore also part of the emergence of modernity.

HotelChatter: We frequently write about the intersection of hospitality and celebrity. Your book says that the hotel has always attracted the famous and photographed.  How did this develop, and why does it continue?

Sandoval-Strausz: : Being a celebrity basically means being known or recognized by many people. In the days before photography and movies and radio and television, celebrities literally had to go out and show themselves and meet people and be seen in public. One of the best places to do that was at a hotel.

To begin with, hotels were full of local people who were doing business or having lunch or attending parties and might catch sight of you. Moreover, hotels played host to travelers who could carry news of your public appearance back to their home communities. And if you went on tour, you could expect every hotel you stopped at to be an opportunity to meet a whole new group of people who typically gathered at their local hotel.

HotelChatter: The hotel is more than just a place to crash; it's also a public space. Certainly these days, hotels have top-name chefs and bars for gathering areas. You write that this has historically been the dual function of the hotel. How did this happen?

Sandoval-Strausz: : Hotels are now so well established that it's easy to forget that at one time they were an experimental type of business. Around the 1810s, early hotelkeepers figured out that even if they filled most of their guest rooms, they could barely break even. They needed additional sources of income, and they found it in bars and restaurants and shops that served a local public in addition to travelers. Hotel managers beautified their lobbies and lounges and dining rooms in order to attract paying customers, and in the process people got used to hotels being very public places.

HotelChatter: Your book has a chapter on "Palaces of the Public," about the rise of grand, sprawling hotels.  These days, smaller, boutique hotels are extremely attractive, even preferable, to travelers. Is there a historical precedent for this?

Sandoval-Strausz: : Boutique hotels really are something new. They're a reaction to what some people consider the excessive standardization of chain hotels-the feeling that it's just not exciting to stay in a hotel that looks exactly the same as the last one you stayed in.

Of course, we should remember that when E. M. Statler began the drive toward standardization with his Buffalo Statler of 1908, he was trying to make hotels more affordable so that more Americans could afford them. Statler was hugely successful, and should be recognized for the way he democratized the nation's hotels. It's just that some hotel companies have taken the idea of efficiency and standardization too far-to the point that they've forgotten the importance of a hotel having some sense of distinctiveness, a personality of its own.

HotelChatter: While your book concerns the history of the hotel, where do you see the hotel headed in the future?

Sandoval-Strausz: : In the near term, the sky's the limit-literally! Not only are hotels being built all over the world, there's a firm that's planning an orbital space hotel. As your readers doubtless know, the hotel industry is among the fastest-growing sectors in the global economy-it nets hundreds of billions of dollars annually and employs literally millions of people.

But the long-term future of hotels depends on finding new sources of energy. The world's petroleum supplies aren't going to last forever. If we don't find new ways to power automobiles and airplanes, people won't be able to travel affordably, and the hotel industry will find itself in deep trouble.

Many thanks to Andrew K. Sandoval-Strausz for agreeing to speak with us. If you want to give yourself a Hotel History 101 lesson, you can pick up Hotel: An American History here on Amazon.com.

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