While I feel like the definition should be pretty straightforward, the reality is that there’s a lot of inconsistency between hotels as to what constitutes a suite, and what constitutes a junior suite. I wanted to address that topic in this post, and am curious how y’all feel about this.
In this post:
Hotels take a lot of liberties with room descriptions
Honestly, hotels don’t do a very good job with naming their room categories. Or at a minimum, there’s not much consistency as to what you can expect from a particular category of room. For guest rooms, what’s the difference between a classic, superior, deluxe, and executive room? For suites, what’s the difference between an executive suite and junior suite?
The reality is that different hotels take different approaches in naming rooms, so you really can’t rely on how a room is named to figure out what you’re going to get. An executive room at one hotel may be more spacious than a junior suite at another hotel. Meanwhile a junior suite at one hotel might be more spacious than an executive suite at another hotel.
That’s why I always rely on other details when deciding what kind of a room to book. I look at pictures online, and I also look at the square footage (though keep in mind that some hotels include outdoor space in square footage, while others don’t).
What constitutes a hotel suite?
If you ask me, the key feature of a “proper” hotel suite (perhaps referred to as an executive suite, or deluxe suite, or superior suite, or whatever) should be that it has a separate living area and sleeping area. In other words, the room has a bedroom with a door or some other substantial partition that separates it from the living room. For example, below is a suite I’ve been assigned at the Hyatt Regency Zurich Airport.
The Merriam-Webster definition of “suite” supports that, as it’s described as “a group of rooms occupied as a unit.” Now, just because the dictionary defines a suite that way doesn’t mean that hotels have the same interpretation. I mean, so many airlines refer to their business class seats as suites, even though they don’t consist of groups of rooms.
Anyway, if hotels want to be honest and manage expectations, I think that’s what they should offer when they promise a suite. That’s not to say that all hotels do that, though, and I’ve stayed at plenty of hotels that don’t have a separate bedroom and living room, yet still call an accommodation a suite.
How does a junior suite differ from a full suite?
As far as I’m concerned, the key feature of a junior suite compared to a less premium room should be that it has a proper sitting area, but perhaps it doesn’t offer a totally separate living room and bedroom.
In terms of seating, I think a junior suite should have seating for a few people, typically at least with a couch or multiple chairs. For example, below is a junior suite I’ve been assigned at the Park Hyatt Milan…
…and a junior suite I’ve been assigned at Marriott’s The Ben in West Palm Beach.
Now, while that’s how I think it should be, that’s not to say that this is how it always is. For example, at Hyatt’s Hotel Martinez Cannes, junior suites just have a chair with an ottoman and half a daybed. Admittedly standard rooms are even smaller here, but calling this any version of a suite seems like a stretch.
Meanwhile at the Park Hyatt Auckland, I was assigned a king bed rooftop room, which isn’t even in any way defined as a suite, yet it was in line with what I’d expect from a junior suite, with a proper couch area and dining table.
Bottom line
There’s not much consistency across the hotel industry when it comes to how hotels define what constitutes a suite. Per the actual definition of the word, a suite should consist of multiple rooms. If you ask me, a full suite should have a separate bedroom and living room, which can be fully separated from one another.
A junior suite is a bit trickier. In my experience there’s not much consistency there, though I expect a junior suite to still have some sort of a substantial sitting area, but maybe not in a separate room.
What’s your take on this — what do you expect from a suite, and what do you expect from a junior suite?
Hoping the Jr Suite at Hilton Elara in Vegas has one separate sleeping room at least...
Then you have the other misleading descriptions such as "city view". I recently stayed in a place with city view near Dallas, so you'd think you'd see Dallas, but no, the city really was in fact really just the small neighbourhood they call a city with a few office buildings and car parks. Bigger cities like NYC your city view will probably consist of a sliver of city between all the other tall buildings.
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Then you have the other misleading descriptions such as "city view". I recently stayed in a place with city view near Dallas, so you'd think you'd see Dallas, but no, the city really was in fact really just the small neighbourhood they call a city with a few office buildings and car parks. Bigger cities like NYC your city view will probably consist of a sliver of city between all the other tall buildings.
A couple of suites I've stayed in lately have had the living area with no windows whilst the bedroom was the area by the windows and view. I'd rather it the other way around with a dark area for sleeping and bright areas for sitting. I didn't use the sitting area once in the 2 weeks I was there because it was so dark with just a few lamps, and instead sat in the one seat in the bedroom with floor to ceiling windows and a decent view.
As a former hotelier, I will respond in short: the difference between suite and junior suite is the seating area in the bedroom while suite has a separated space that is not the bedroom
Hotels are even looser with square footage / meters! I’ve stayed in tiny “superior” rooms that were supposedly 40sqm; conversely, I’ve had “deluxe” rooms that were listed as 25sqm, but felt much much larger.
This is a real pet peeve: hotels that throw a sofa into the room (and maybe a kitchenette) and call it a suite. Traveling as a family, we want to have the parents and kid in their own rooms. A cost-effective way to do it, rather than getting two rooms, can be a suite. But then the suite actually has to have a bedroom with a door. It is not always obvious from the hotel...
This is a real pet peeve: hotels that throw a sofa into the room (and maybe a kitchenette) and call it a suite. Traveling as a family, we want to have the parents and kid in their own rooms. A cost-effective way to do it, rather than getting two rooms, can be a suite. But then the suite actually has to have a bedroom with a door. It is not always obvious from the hotel website whether the "suite" actually has a separate bedroom.
Which is one reason why we've largely switched to AirBnBs for our vacations. There is absolutely no ambiguity in an AirBnB listing: the number of bedrooms is the number of bedrooms, period. Hotels could learn a thing or two about transparency from 5-star AirBnB hosts.
Meeting up with friends in Vegas we all had booked "suites" in different hotels. One, I think it was Virgin, you could actually touch the bed, table and sofa without taking a single step. Just because a hotel crams extra furniture in a regular sized room does not make it a suite. Even a junior suite should feel a bit spacious and a true suite has a bedroom door.
Tons of european hotel have suites under 40sqm, while a lot of Chinese hotels have entry level rooms >40sqm.
I often find that full hotel suites have more "personality" than junior suites / upgraded base rooms. More design, architectural details, etc.
The industry is super loose with the definition. We stayed at a junior suite at The Mitsui in Kyoto and it has a proper living room. A junior suite at Westin Surabaya is a very large room with a daybed and a small dining table in the corner. My regency suite at HR Tokyo Shinjuku has a proper living room but the partition with the bed room is a slatted wood wall so it is kinda half baked separation. The list goes on ......
Agree with you 100%. Marriott uses its "suite" upgrade to be defined to be a room with a better view. There should be standards. A suite should have a door between bedroom and living room.
A lot of hotels are getting loose with the Jr. Suite description. I always check the square footage of a Jr. Suite. Too small = a regular/deluxe/superior/premium/whatever they want to call it with a small seating area.
Would you pick a small junior suite over a larger room? What about an incredibly designed penthouse room with a view vs a larger junior suite facing a wall? Never understood caring about the square footage unless it's extremely small; I'd much rather have whatever is the nicest looking room with the nicest view.
No, and I'm 100% with you. My point was moreso that junior suites tend to be priced significantly higher than a standard room as they are usually the entry "suite" category. If the size of the room is about the same as a normal room, I'll book the normal room almost every time. Obviously there are other factors at play - amenities, views, etc, that I take into account. All I meant was that hotels...
No, and I'm 100% with you. My point was moreso that junior suites tend to be priced significantly higher than a standard room as they are usually the entry "suite" category. If the size of the room is about the same as a normal room, I'll book the normal room almost every time. Obviously there are other factors at play - amenities, views, etc, that I take into account. All I meant was that hotels are taking advantage of "suite" pricing and are calling just about any room with a couch or small seating area a jr. Suite, when in reality a true Jr. Suite should be much larger than a standard room and have a legitimate open-plan living area.
Gotcha - misunderstood you and agree.
I don't know why exactly but I always prefer a junior suite vs having a fully separate living room. The living room areas are usually small or pokey or have an odd shape and I find it's easier to forget things if you have more than one 'room'. I'm probably in the minority with this, but junior suites just feel more cozy and practical.
I feel you on this - the full suites I've stayed in typically still have a chair/bench/couch in the bedroom as well rendering the living room kind of pointless unless you are having people over.
And then there are entire chains with suite in the name (Springhill Suites) that don't offer a group of rooms occupied as a unit.