"Making guests feel at home" has long been a key goal of the hotel industry. At the most basic level this means offering a clean room with a comfortable bed. Yet, as our lives have evolved to include more creature comforts, our hotel facilities have upgraded the amenities and services accordingly. Air conditioning, remote control television, pay-per-view movies, multiple telephones, dataport hook-ups, and Internet access are all examples of household trends that have become commonplace in lodging facilities today.

The bar is continuously being raised. Recent years of high volume renovation and new hotel construction opened the door to new approaches in luxury hotel design. Hotels must now offer a "lifestyle" shaped by the fashion and commercialism of today's prosperity.

The W Hotels and the Ian Schrager's Hotels are two companies that have embraced this concept. One of the hottest new innovations in the affordable luxury segment to hit the hospitality industry in the last decade, boutique hotels are typically small, intimate establishments. Heavy on style and unique amenities, they often include king-sized beds piled high with billowy down comforters and pillows, CD players, telephones and TVs in the bathroom, and even spas in some of the metro locations.

While Schrager's hotels are chic, stylish and very successful, their appeal is targeted more to a hip, affluent clientele. W, on the other hand, tries to bridge the gap by being stylish as well as providing the businessperson with the traditional requirements of meeting space and business centers.

If the opulent standards of name brands are important to you, the Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton flags once again dominate Travel & Leisure's list of "World's Best" hotels. These luxury brands placed 22 and 14 hotels, respectively, on the magazine's top 100 list.

Roughly two-thirds of the hotels and resorts (including 17 Four Seasons and 12 Ritz-Carltons) are located in the United States or its territories -- a record total. The remainder is scattered throughout Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean.

Independent hotels and resorts on the other hand continue to provide special amenities and services sometimes not found at the name brand hotels. At the Elan Hotel Modern in LA, each guestroom is handsomely appointed with a complimentary assortment of thoughtful amenities you'd expect to pay extra for, including an extensive video library, 200 thread count Egyptian Cotton bedding and two phones with remote voice message pickup.

In Scottsdale, the Hotel Waterfront Ivy is not your typical "cookie cutter" hotel either. Starbucks Coffee, cotton robes and natural bath products are just a few of the in-room standard amenities.

The term "SPA" originated from the town of Spa, in eastern Belgium, which featured a number of natural mineral springs. Discovered in the 14th century, the springs gradually gained a reputation for their healing qualities. Today, "spa" is generally accepted to mean "of the waters" and thus, refers to treatments that unite the body with water. Of course, modern spas incorporate much more than hydrotherapy. Facials, manicures, pedicures and massages are widely regarded as standard fare. At the Velda Rose Resort Hotel & Spa, packages include accommodations, full body massage and tickets to the Springs in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where the resort is located.

According to the 2000 Spa Industry Survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 95 million Americans visited spas last year, generating $5 billion in revenues. "As the general public has become better educated about the importance of health and wellness, the spa facility has emerged as a viable relaxation destination," says Margaret Byrnes, spa director at the PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. "This, in turn, has fueled the desire by travelers to incorporate 'the spa experience' as an important component of both their vacation and business trips.

Newer spas are enjoying similar success, says Julie Robinson, director of the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa located within the recently opened Mystic Marriott Hotel & Spa in Groton, Connecticut. In its first three months of operation, the $2.5 million, 10,000-square-foot spa attracted nearly 4,000 visitors and exceeded budgeted figures by more than 90 percent.

Historically, spa operations were treated by management as similar to other revenue departments like food and beverage or telephone. These departments were simply perceived to be amenities needed to attract guests to the hotel. As long as these departments broke even, or didn't lose too much money, their ability to increase occupancy was deemed sufficient justification for their existence. However, in recent years, hotel spas have followed the path of the other operating departments and transformed from support facilities to profit centers.

The Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa in Honolulu recently opened its Holistica Hawaii Health Center. Defined as a medically based center that allows guests to take control of their health, it offers a range of body-scanning services, as well as virtual colonographies, 3-D vascular ultrasounds, and individualized nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle evaluations.

The Serenity Spa Hawaii is now open at the Outrigger Reef on the Beach as well. The main 5,000-square-foot facility is comprised of a full array of modern day spa services to pamper and rejuvenate its guests. Its "Golden Touch" massage treatment helps those that want to achieve that Hawaiian tan. It provides guests with maximum tanning while minimizing the potential harmful affects of the tropical sun.

In the future, look for existing hotel spa operations to escalate in number, while other establishments figure out a way to include some level of spa facilities and services in their facilities. Already, we have seen almost every large resort, convention, and casino hotel either build a spa facility or contract with an operator of a "brand name" in the spa industry. All hotels cannot afford to construct and operate a full spa operation. However, some accommodations will need to be available either on-site or off.

For those hotels that currently operate spas, look to the dedicated destination spa resorts to set the trends in the types of spa facilities and services offered to guests. To some degree, the larger hotels will mimic these operations.