The expansion of the international hotel chains, in their vast majority, was
accompanied and made possible by a process of standardization and
commoditization. This process generated the birth of the box hotel concept,
characterized by the uniformity of the core and facilitating products. The lack of
differentiation between the hospitality products and services resulted finally in a
“McDonaldisation” of the global hotel industry. This systematic standardization of
the hospitality product provoked a counter-movement inspired by consumers
searching for hotels with unique or sophisticated and innovative characteristics,
called boutique, design or lifestyle hotels. Sophistication and innovation explain the
growth of the boutique, design and lifestyle hotel niches. In order to employ a generic
term for these new niches, it is referred to the boutique, design and lifestyle concepts
expressing these by the term - lifestyle hotels.
Freund de Klumbis and Munsters ( 2005) identify