Beautiful Hotels

The Saraye Ameriha Hotel, Kashan, housed in an 18th-19th century house. Photograph: ©Patrick Ringgenberg.

Until the beginning of the 2000s, Iran had high-class hotels, often built in the Pahlavi era (like the Homa chain), of good standing but relatively impersonal. The only exception was (and still is) the Abbasi Hotel in Isfahan, established in the 1960s in a former 18th century caravanserai.

Hotel Abbasi

The Abbasi Hotel, Isfahan. Photography: ©Patrick Ringgenberg.

The caravanserai of Zein od-Din, near Yazd.

Then, in the 2000s, private initiatives began to transform old 19th century houses into charming hotels or Boutique Hotels. The first was the Manuchehri Hotel in Kashan, a pioneering project awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. A traditional town which preserves hundreds of houses from the Qajar period, Kashan became the epicenter of a movement which combined heritage rehabilitation and hotel innovation. These initiatives were followed in other cities, such as Isfahan, Yazd and Shiraz. At the same time, hotels were installed in old caravanserais, such as the Zein od-Din, a Safavid caravanserai with a circular plan, located south of Yazd in a desert region, along an old caravan route.

The 2010s saw the proliferation of eco-lodges, installed in regions that are often not very touristy, and offering an alternative type of accommodation, concerned with sustainable development and the preservation of a regional lifestyle, cuisine and architecture.

The mountain village of Masuleh, in the Alborz: one example among others of traditional villages rehabilitated and preserved thanks to the conversion of several abandoned houses into accommodation. Photograph: ©Patrick Ringgenberg.

Today, there remains a more or less pronounced imbalance in hotel capacities. Some regions (Khorasan, Sistan va Baluchestan) lack infrastructure, and even Isfahan, the most touristy city in Iran, does not have enough good quality hotels. The hotel projects are numerous, however, and varied: from luxury hotels with modernist architecture (the Fereshteh Pasargad Hotel in Tehran) to projects renewing the harmony of the architecture and its natural environment (the Stars Valley Hotel in Qeshm ).

A room in the Kuhpayeh caravanserai (Safavid period), transformed into a hotel. Photograph: ©Patrick Ringgenberg.

Khaneh Irani hotel

The Khaneh Irani hotel, in Kashan, housed in a 19th century house. Photograph: ©Patrick Ringgenberg.