Boutique hotel: what makes a hotel boutique, and how to sell one

• Small: tens of rooms rather than hundreds, though there is no set number.
• Its own design: rooms that differ from each other, local materials, art, a building with a past.
• Personal service: a team that knows guests' names and what they like.
• A place: a street, a view, a neighbourhood it belongs to, with its food and its recommendations.
• Independent, or part of a small group, rather than a large chain's identical rooms.

Guests choose a boutique hotel for the experience more than the facilities, so they read photos and reviews closely, and pay for character when they can see it.

The Ministry of Tourism's classification has no boutique category. Its categories for hotels already open run from one star to five-star deluxe, beside separate schemes for heritage hotels, legacy vintage hotels, guest houses, and bed and breakfast and homestay establishments. Which of them a boutique hotel could apply for depends on its size and its building:

• Star classification: at least 10 lettable rooms, with room sizes set for each category.
• Heritage: a building put up before 1950, with at least 5 rooms.
• Legacy vintage: a hotel built with materials from buildings put up before 1950, at least half of its materials from them.
• Guest house approval: at least 6 lettable rooms.
• Bed and breakfast or homestay classification: one to six rooms.

All of them are voluntary. Separately, your municipality, the fire service and your state's tourism department have their own licences and registrations: check what each asks of you.

• Booking.com has no boutique property type: in its list of property codes, boutique and charm hotels both become Hotel. Choose Hotel when you register, since Booking.com says the property type can't be changed later.
• Room names come from each site's own list, so a room you call the Neem Room is a deluxe double on Booking.com and Agoda. Use your own names in the room's description and on your website.
• Stars on Booking.com come from the property or an official body. A boutique hotel that hasn't been classified can leave stars blank rather than guess.
• Google says that where a hotel has no official rating, it may give one of its own, estimated from things such as price, location, room size and amenities.

So the boutique part has to come through in what each listing lets you write and show: the description, the photos, the facilities you tick, and the reviews guests leave.

• Photograph what makes each room different, in daylight, with the detail a guest will remember: the window seat, the old door, the courtyard.
• Say it plainly in the description's first two lines: the building, the place, the number of rooms.
• On your website, give your rooms' own names and stories with the booking sites' standard names beside them, so guests can match the two.
• Answer reviews by name, from someone guests met.
• Give the facts in full on every listing, since guests ask them before booking: check-in times, parking, whether children are welcome, breakfast.
• Make your website the fullest place to see the hotel, so a guest who finds you on a booking site can book you directly.

• Your price against nearby hotels, night by night: the premium you can hold is set by guests, not by the word boutique.
• What reviews praise and complain about: character is in the praise, and small problems repeated, such as hot water or noise, wear it away.
• Whether booking sites sell your rooms for less than your website: a guest who found you on a booking site may book you directly next time, if your own price is no higher.
• That every listing shows the same rooms, photos and facts.