International variations[edit]

The early motels were built in the southwestern United States as a replacement for the tourist camps and tourist cabins which had grown around the US highway system. In Australia and New Zealand, motels have followed largely the same path of development as in Canada and the United States. The first Australian motels include the West End Motel in Ballina, New South Wales (1937) and the Penzance Motel in Eagle Hawk, Tasmania (1939).^[56]

Motels gained international popularity in countries such as Thailand, Germany, and Japan but in some countries the term "motel" now connotes either a low-end hotel (such as Hotel Formule 1 in Europe) or a no-tell motel.

Canada

The Mid-Trail Motel & Inn inPleasant Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, 2010

As in the US, the initial 1930s roadside accommodations were primitive tourist camps, with over a hundred campgrounds listed in Ontario alone on one 1930 provincial road map.^[57] While most of these provided access to the most basic of amenities (like picnic tables, playgrounds, toilet facilities and supplies), fewer than a quarter offered cottages in the pre-Depression era, and the vast majority required travelers bring their own tents. In Canada's climate, these sites were effectively unusable outside the high season.

Because cabins and camps were ill-suited to a Canadian winter, the number and variety of motels grew dramatically after World War II, peaking just before freeways such as Ontario Highway 401 opened in the 1960s. By the 1980s, motels were losing ground rapidly to franchises such as Journey's End Corporation and the US-based chains. Due to Canada's climate and short tourist season (which begins at Victoria Day continuing to Labour Day orThanksgiving) any outdoor swimming pool would be usable for little more than two months of the year and independent motels would operate at a loss or close during the off-season.

Much of Canada's population is crowded into a few small southern regions. While the Windsor-Québec corridor was bypassed by motorways relatively early, sending former independent motels on the former two-lane highways into steep decline, in more sparsely populated regions (including much of Northern Ontario) thousands of kilometers of mostly two-lane Trans-Canada Highway remain undisturbed as the road makes its lengthy journey westward through tiny, distant and isolated communities.

Europe

The original concept of a motel as a motorist's hotel which grew up around the highways of the 1920s is of American origin. The term appears to have initially had the same meaning in other countries, but has since been used in many places to refer either to a budget-priced hotel with limited amenities or a love hotel, depending on the country and language. The division between motel and hotel, like elsewhere, has been blurred, so many of these are low-end hotels.

In France, motel-style chain accommodations of up to three stories (with exterior hallways and stairwells) are marketed as "one-star hotels". The Louvre Hôtels chain operates Première Classe (1 star) as a market segmentation brand in this range, using other marquesfor higher or mid-range hotels. The use of "motel" to identify any budget-priced roadhouse hotel (Rasthaus, Raststätte) also exists in the German language; some French chains operating in Germany (such as Accor's Hotel Formule 1) offer automated registration and small, Spartan rooms at reduced cost.

In Portuguese, "motel" (plural: "motéis") commonly refers not to the original drive-up accommodation house for motorists but to an "adult motel" or love hotel with amenities such as jacuzzi baths, in-room pornography, candles and oversize or non-standard-shaped beds in various honeymoon-suite styles. These rooms are available for as little as four hours, and minors are excluded from these establishments.^[58] (The Portuguese-language term "rotel" had brief usage in 1970s Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for a similar concept, ro- for rooms through which clients rotate in a matter of hours instead of overnight.)

A similar association of "motel" to short-stay hotels with reserved parking and luxury rooms which can be rented by couples for a few hours has begun to appear in Italy, where the market segment has shown significant growth since the 1990s and become highly competitive.^[59]

South America

In Central and South America, a "motel" (in Mexico, "Motel de paso") is an establishment often associated with extramarital encounters and rented typically for a few hours (15 minutes to 12 hours). In Ecuador, any establishment with the title "Motel" is related to extramarital encounters; in Argentina and Peru these hotels for couples are called "albergue transitorio" ("temporary shelter") and offered for anything from a few hours to overnight, with décor based on amenities such as dim lights, a jacuzzi and a king-size bed. In other Spanish-speaking countries these establishments have other slang names like "mueble", "amueblado" ("furniture", "furnished rental") or "telo".

In the Dominican Republic, "cabins" (named for their cabin-like shape) have all these amenities (such as jacuzzi, oversize bed and HDTV) but generally do not have windows, and have private parking for each room individually. Registration is handled not in a conventional manner but, upon entering the room, by delivering a bill with the registration through a small window that does not allow eye contact to ensure greater discretion.^[60][61]

The connotations of "motel" as adult motel or love hotel in both the Spanish and Portuguese languages can be awkward for US-based chains accustomed to using the term in its original meaning,^[62] although this issue is diminishing as chains (such as Super 8 Motels) increasingly drop the word "motel" from their corporate identities at home.

Architecture

The Star Lite Motel in Dilworth, Minnesota is a typical American 1950s L-shaped motel

A family enjoying a typical 1960s-era American motel room at the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge in Penns Grove, New Jersey. For a nominal fee, motels would provide a cot to accommodate this family's four children.

Motels frequently had large pools, such as the Thunderbird Motel on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon(1973)

Motels differ from hotels in their location along highways, as opposed to the urban cores favored by hotels, and their orientation to the outside (in contrast to hotels, whose doors typically face an interior hallway). Motels almost by definition include a parking lot, while older hotels were not usually built with automobile parking in mind.

Because of their low-rise construction, the number of rooms which would fit on any given amount of land was low compared to the high-rise urban hotels which had grown around railway stations. This was not an issue in an era where the major highways became Main Street in every town along the way and inexpensive land at the edge of town could be developed with motels, car lots, filling stations, lumber yards, amusement parks, roadside diners, drive-in restaurants, theatres, and countless other small roadside businesses. The automobile brought mobility and the motel could appear anywhere on the vast network of two-lane highways.

Layout

Motels are typically constructed in an "I"-, "L"-, or "U"-shaped layout that includes guest rooms; an attached manager's office; a small reception; in most motels, a swimming pool; and in some cases, a small diner. A motel was typically single-story with rooms opening directly onto a parking lot, making it easy to unload suitcases from a vehicle.^[2] A second story, if present, would face onto a balcony served by multiple stairwells.

The post-war motels, especially in the early 1950s to late 1960s, sought more visual distinction, often featuring eye-catching colorful neon signs which employed themes from popular culture, ranging from Western imagery ofcowboys and Indians to contemporary images of spaceships and atomic era iconography. U.S. Route 66 is the most popular example of the "neon era". Many of these signs remain fully intact to this day.

Room types

In some motels, a handful of rooms would be larger and contain kitchenettes or apartment-like amenities; these rooms were marketed at a higher price as "efficiencies" as their occupants could prepare food themselves instead of incurring the cost of eating all meals in restaurants. Rooms with connecting doors (so that two standard rooms could be combined into one larger room) also commonly appeared in both hotels and motels. A few motels (particularly in Niagara Falls, Ontario, where a motel strip extending from Lundy's Lane to the falls has long been marketed to newlyweds) would offer "honeymoon suites" with extra amenities such as whirlpool baths.