About

What this catalogue is, how cards are written, and what it leaves out

The catalogue

Infscenter keeps an index of sixteen hotels in four categories: art hotels, capsule hotels, casino hotels and ice hotels. It exists because these four formats are usually written about in a way that flattens them — a score out of ten, a list of amenities, adjectives that would fit any building on any continent.

The alternative offered here is old-fashioned and deliberately so. One card per hotel. A call number, a name, a few paragraphs of plain description, and two or three labels. If you read a card and come away knowing what kind of building it is, the card has done its work.

Why these four categories

Each was chosen because the building is the story rather than the backdrop. An art hotel that commissions its own work is a different proposition from a hotel with prints in the lift lobby. A capsule hotel is an argument about how little a room can hold. A casino hotel is a resort with an additional floor. An ice hotel is a structure that is demolished each year by the weather and drawn again from scratch.

How a card is written

General, true-to-character description only — the sort of thing a property has been known for over years, not a detail that shifts with the season.
No prices, no availability, no room counts stated as promises. Those move, and the hotel is the only reliable source.
No ratings, no stars, no scores, and no reviews. We have never invented a guest and will not start.
No paid placements and no affiliate arrangements. A card cannot be bought.

What this is not

Not a booking agent, not a travel agency, not a representative of any hotel named here. There is no reservation system on this site and none is planned. Hotel names and marks belong to their owners and appear only to identify the properties described.

On the casino drawer

The four casino hotels are filed and described as hotels, because that is what they are: properties with rooms, restaurants, theatres and meeting space, which also run a gaming floor. Nothing here promotes gambling, explains how to gamble, or offers any form of play. Each operator publishes its own age rules and responsible-play information, and those govern.