Heritage hotel: India's heritage classification, and how to sell a historic hotel

• Heritage, often called Heritage Basic: a palace, castle, fort, haveli, hunting lodge or residence built before 1950, with at least 5 rooms and 10 beds, serving the traditional cuisine of its area.
• Heritage Classic: built before 1935, with at least 15 rooms and 30 beds and at least one sporting facility, such as a pool, a health club, tennis, riding or golf. Traditional cuisine, with four or five dishes close to continental ones.
• Heritage Grand: built before 1935, with at least 15 rooms and 30 beds, superior decor in every public and private area, at least half its rooms air-conditioned (or heated, in the hills) and at least two sporting facilities. Traditional and continental cuisine.

No room or bathroom size is set for any of them. The Ministry says it considers the ambience, comfort and imaginative readaptation of the building when it awards Classic or Grand. A bar is necessary for Classic and Grand, where the law allows one, and desirable for Heritage.

• The facade, architectural features and general construction should have the distinctive qualities of the area's traditional way of life, and shouldn't normally be interfered with.
• Any extension, renovation or change should follow the traditional styles and building methods, harmonising the new with the old.
• After any expansion, the new built-up area should be no more than half of the total built-up (plinth) area, old and new together. Pools and lawns aren't counted.
• Guest rooms should be clean, airy and free of damp, of a reasonably large size, with attached bathrooms with modern facilities.
• The hotel may be run by the owning family, by professionals or both, and is judged on its service and the experience of its owners and staff.

The guidelines also ask for local entertainment and, where possible, activities such as wildlife viewing, riding or safaris, and for housekeeping of the highest standard. A heritage hotel is expected to feel like the place it is, and to run like a good hotel.

For a newer building made from old ones, the Ministry has a separate scheme for legacy vintage hotels: hotels built with materials from buildings put up before 1950, at least half of the materials from them, as certified by the appropriate government authority. Unlike heritage hotels, they have set room sizes.

• Legacy Vintage Basic: materials from buildings from before 1950, at least 5 rooms, at least half of them air-conditioned, rooms of at least 130 square feet and bathrooms of 36.
• Legacy Vintage Classic: materials from buildings from before 1935, at least 15 rooms, all air-conditioned, rooms of 140 square feet and bathrooms of 36, and one sporting facility.
• Legacy Vintage Grand: as Classic, with rooms of 200 square feet, bathrooms of 45, superior decor and two sporting facilities.

Heritage classification is voluntary, like the star scheme. The Ministry's guidelines send heritage hotels' applications to its Hotel and Restaurant Approval and Classification Committee, the HRACC, in New Delhi, as they do four-star and five-star hotels'. The Ministry now runs its star classification through the NIDHI+ portal, where the heritage guidelines are published too.

The Ministry also approved hotel projects, heritage ones among them, before they opened. Its NIDHI website says that scheme was discontinued from 16 March 2026; classifying hotels already running is separate.

• Read the heritage guidelines on the Ministry's NIDHI website, and check the building's date with documents you can show.
• Match the category to the building: its age, its rooms, its sporting facilities and its decor.
• Ask your state's tourism department what it offers heritage properties, since states run heritage and tourism policies of their own.

• On Booking.com, a heritage hotel lists as a Hotel: its list of property types has no heritage type, and the type can't be changed after registration.
• Room names come from each site's standard list. Keep your rooms' own names, such as the Rani Mahal suite or the Darbar room, for your descriptions, photos and website.
• Photograph the old and the new honestly: guests who book a fort expect stairs, thick walls and small windows, and say so in reviews when they are surprised.
• Say what the building's age means for guests: whether there is a lift, the steps to rooms, how hot water and air-conditioning work, the noise of a bazaar outside.
• Tell the building's story in a few lines with its dates on every listing, and in full on your website.
• List what guests can do: the local entertainment, walks, rides and meals the guidelines expect a heritage hotel to arrange.