About Us
AirportTerminalHotels.com was primarily set up as a hobby; as a frequent traveler I was fascinated by how underrated a hotel that is physically connected to an actual airport terminal is. Both as a business traveler and as a leisure traveler, often there is a need to get a really early morning flight and the idea of having to get up earlier than needed, to wait half an hour for a shuttle bus (which you might miss) to take you the 3 miles down the road to the terminal can be quite stressful, not to mention eating into your sleep time!
It is very comforting knowing that you do not need to depend on a means of transport like a shuttle bus (which could fail) to get you to the terminal in time and past the check-in desk and bound for your destination on your own steam walking without the danger of anything going wrong!
Equally, if you arrive at your destination airport really late, the thought of having to slog it into the center, getting one or more of a number of more modes of transport to your hotel or having to wait for that hated shuttle bus to take you just 5 minutes down the road in an isolated location where you are trapped, load and unload your luggage and figuring out where the dreaded shuttle leaves from and when just isn’t fun! I can think of better ways to spend my precious time than standing around in the cold waiting for the next bus!
When you are tired, arrive late and just simply want to get a good night’s sleep, a hotel inside the airport terminal that you can walk to in a few minutes really make a lot of sense.
There is yet another extremely valuable reason for using an airport terminal hotel; when you have arrived somewhere and have a long layover in the terminal, awaiting for your next flight, but really need a few hours sleep, these can provide some relief an just give you the boost you need to keep going, do some work and make the whole experience more pleasant before your next flight. If you land early and are tired and have time to kill you can have a rest, maybe use the WiFi to download and answer a few emails, shower have a coffee in a civilized manner; especially useful if you company policy requires you to fly in economy/coach class!
Just like hotels outside the immediate airport, terminal hotels these days can range in quality, location and price, as well as the services they offer for example:
- Some offer rooms by the hour, usually with a minimum of 3 to 4 hours.
- Some hotels are air-side (after the security controls and therefore just for flying passengers or people already the other side and saves you having to repeat security if you are in transit.
- Some land-side (these can be accessible to non-flying passengers) e.g. people who have arrived too early to check in.
- Many of the big international brands have set-up shop in airport terminals, whilst in others, low cost or Japanese “capsule” hotels are available.
- Some larger hub airport even have low cost and luxury chain hotels competing for business, such is the demand for a bed within walking distance!
The main motivating factor for setting up this website however, was from sheer frustration when travelling and never being able to understand if a hotel was actually within walking distance of the terminal, e.g. connected by a walkway or within the airport itself.
In my experience as a frequent traveller, most hotels that are actually inside an airport terminal do a really bad job of explaining how to reach them and I have had many a time where I was convinced I could walk with my trolley bag from the reception of the hotel to the terminal to discover to my horror that I actually had to wait for the half hourly shuttle bus and that by the time the next one came, I might be too late to check-in!
I hope with this website I can share some feedback regarding hotels that are located within walking distance of the airport terminal, that do not require a bus to get there. Sometimes hotels that are walk able, do provide an additional courtesy bus, despite being perfectly walk-able, these are primarily meant for passengers who do not care for the longish walk or have heavy luggage.
I´m specifically interested in airports that have hotels located inside or within close walking proximity to the terminal to avoid all reliance on transport and allowing you to get there independently and at the time you want to get there. Where possible, I will also indicate how long approximately the walk is and I invite fellow travelers to contribute their feedback to on the hotel I talk about, or indeed suggest others to feature that they feel need special mention good and bad!
Happy lower stress travel!!