From the archive: posh hotels from the 1970s

Ranging from £5 to £10 and offering anonymous service and instant coffee, the hotels of the 1970s were gearing themselves up for the boom in mass tourism

‘The jumbo jets, now increasingly common over London, have marked the start of the new age,’ writes Eric Clark in the Observer Magazine of 24 May 1970 (Hotels: A Guest’s Guide for the 1970s). ‘The big question is whether the mass movement in the air can be matched with enough of the right hotel accommodation on the ground.’

Clark advises that, ‘Most hotels now being built in Britain will be in the medium price range, anything from £5 to £10 per night… But the future is less happy for the mass-age traveller hoping for a hotel bed at less than £5 a night.’