Australian Hotels offer a range of accommodation options from budget hotel brands like Comfort Inn or one the World’s premier hotels, Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast.
No matter your requirements there is bound to be an Australian Hotel for your budget. There are substantial accommodation options available to the traveller in Australia including major international hotel brands including .
- Accor From the luxury Sofitel brand to a slight step down with the Grand Mecure, Novotel and Mercure all the way to the basic All Seasons Ibis and Formule 1. Accor has hotels in a range of economic travel segments, from luxury to budget class hotels.
- Best Western International is the world’s largest hotel brand with more than 4,200 hotels in 80 countries including Australia and are renown for low rates and a good service.
- Hilton Hotels Hotel brands include Conrad, Hilton,
- Hyatt Hotels Hyatt has over 735 hotels and resorts in more than 44 countries. The company brands include Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency and Hyatt Resorts..
- InterContinental Hotels Group hotel brands include InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express.
- Marriott hotels include the Marriott, Courtyard and Ritz Carlton brands.
- Radisson and its affiliates Country Inn, Park Plaza and Park Inn have over 1700 hotels around the world.
- Starwood Hotels Starwood hotel brands in Australia include Sheraton, Westin and Four Points.
- Wyndham has 6,500 hotels around the world including Australia. with the Ramada Travelodge and the upmarket Wyndham Hotels brand.
To get information
Star ratings
The guide below is by necessity a generalization, as star ratings are awarded by each country according to their own rules, and the difference between a 3-star and a 4-star may be something as obscure as having a minibar in each room.
It’s also worth noting that star ratings are often ’sticky’, in the sense that once awarded they’re rarely taken away: a four-star built last year is probably still pretty good, but a four-star opened in 1962 and never renovated since may well have turned into a dump.
Note also that the ratings are weakening as marketers misuse them. The original Michelin star scale for restaurants only went up to three stars, which meant restaurants worth making a special trip for. Two stars were worth a detour, one a stop. The Mobil Travel Guide, which covers all of North America, awarded the Five Star rating to only 32 hotels in 2006, but that does not prevent dozens of hotels from claiming to be “five star”. Most are more like Mobil’s defintion [2] of three star “Well-appointed establishment, with full services and amenities” or four star “Outstanding-worth a special trip”.
Six and seven-star hotels
The notion is that a hotel can be six or seven stars is a joke among travel professionals since most respectable hotel rating systems do not give out a rating higher than five stars. The consensus is since so few hotels really can achieve the five star rating then there shouldn’t be a rating higher than five stars.
An example of a popularly known “six star” hotel is the Gold Coast’s Palazzo Versace Hotel. It’s certainly one of the most luxurious hotels in the world. In reality, it is a 5 star deluxe property.
Five-star hotels
The five-star hotels is the quintessential luxury hotel, offering frills above and beyond the actual needs of the travel. They have restaurants and night spots that are world class, with food and entertainment that draw non-guests to sample it too.
Five-star hotels also tend to have opulent and expensive decorations; fancy gyms, swimming pools and spas. Major five-star chains compete to offer the most ludicrous frills imaginable: Loews offers dog-walking services, while Conrad will let you order from a menu of pillows. Needless to say, all this comes at a steep price, and you’re unlikely to be able to justify the expense of a five-star for ordinary business travel. The other downside to five-stardom is that hotels that can jump through all the hoops to achieve the rating are likely to be large and impersonal.
Major chains: Conrad, Intercontinental, Ritz Carlton, Sofitel and Four Seasons
Four-star hotels
The four-star hotel is a good business hotel. Everything works smoothly, there’s Internet in every room, a well-equipped business center, they’ll arrange your airport transfer and room service is palatable and only somewhat expensive. And your boss will probably not faint when they see the bill.
Major chains: Hilton, Marriott, Novotel, Crowne Plaza (Intercontinental)
Three-star hotels
Three-star hotels are solid but dull. Your room will have an attached bathroom and there’s probably a restaurant downstairs and 24-hour reception service.
Major chains: Ibis, Mercure (two Accor hotels brands), Courtyard by Marriott and the Holiday Inn
Two-star hotels
Two stars means no-frills hotel. In most countries two stars means that your room probably has its own bathroom and there’s probably a TV and telephone in your room, but rooms are bare-bones and you’re unlikely to want to spend any more time than strictly necessary inside.
Major chains: Comfort Inn
One-star hotels
You don’t see many of these, and with reason. One-stars are not just no-frills, but often downright dodgy: rooms are barely functional, shared bathrooms are somewhere down a corridor and the painted ladies from the all-hours karaoke bar next door dance the horizontal tango all night long in the room next to yours.
Major chains: Formule 1
Unrated hotels
Unrated hotels are a mixed bag. Most, it is safe to say, are hotels that are either too dodgy to achieve even the meager requirements of a one-star – or, alternatively, too small and personal to
be able to offer (say) 24-hour room service, although the service and amenities offered are otherwise of five-star caliber.
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