A group of 25 hotels in Sendai, Japan, has reached an agreement on the holding of funeral services according to a common price structure set at about half the amount charged by most temples and memorial service halls. The creation of the funeral package is a reflection of the hotel’s efforts to secure new sources of revenue amid a fall in earnings from the staging of weddings. Isn’t this carrying synergy too far!

George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.” The following hotels would have made Mr. Shaw proud:

Sweden’s annual all-ice hotel is growing in size to accommodate increasing demand, with about 10,000 guests already booked for its chilly rooms. This winter’s Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi, a village 120 miles above the Arctic Circle, is the biggest ever, with an ice dome 30 feet over an ice bar and a stage. The whole complex, including the hotel, an ice church, an art center, and a movie theater with an ice screen, will cover 6,000 square yards, more area than a football field, and 10 percent larger than last year. The one-story hotel has 45 double rooms and 15 suites. It is built every December and lasts until sometime in May.

Beginning next month, visitors to Quebec City may well be able to spend a night in one of North America’s most unusual hotels: a huge, luminous igloo in which everything from furniture to light fixtures is carved from ice and packed snow. The Ice Hotel in Quebec will be built this month from 2,500 tons of ice and 4,500 tons of snow. The 10,000-square-foot hotel, which will have no metal or wooden structural elements, will feature six bedrooms with a capacity of 22 guests. The main hall will have a 16-foot vaulted snow ceiling and an ice chandelier lighted with optical fibers, to generate a minimum amount of heat. Sculptors have designed the bedrooms, each with four-foot-thick snow walls and sheer ice windows. Guest will be able to sleep on beds carved from ice; mattresses, deer pelts and insulated sleeping bags will ensure them a relatively cozy night’s rest. The rooms, lighted by both candles and fiber optics, will be a brisk 30 degrees. Toilets, though no showers, will be available in a heated building adjoining the hotel.

The Ice Hotel will also be open to visitors who have no intention of staying the night. Ice and snow sculptors from several countries are expected to fill the hotel’s two galleries with relief carvings, scenes of winter life and sculptures incorporating Inuit artifacts. In the Absolut Ice Bar, chilled vodka will be served in ice shot glasses.

According to the Travel Industry Association of America, the percentage of families who stay in hotels now exceeds the number staying with family and friends. Another TIA study shows that there’s been a 230% increase since 1987 in the number of business trips that include children. Smart hotels now provide kids’ camps and interactive experiences complete with welcome packs, kid-sized check-in desks, kids’ menus and even pint-sized frequent traveler programs.

Atlantis, the Sun International property on Paradise Island in The Bahamas, and the Discovery Channel have created a complex designed “to immerse children in interactive explorations of the wonders of the natural world”. The Technology Lab links kids to Discovery Channel content on the Internet; and the Science Outpost is equipped with microscopes, magnifiers, collections of fossils, animals and plants and an aquarium.