The trend in hotels these days in NYC, London, Paris, Venice and other large cities is to appeal to tourists with tiny and tinier rooms. They’re promoted as all comfy and cute, but could be viewed as reminders of cramped Army troop train compartments. Or the Three Stooges sharing a boutique room.

Regular-sized hotel rooms are redesigned by cutting them into two or three smaller sleeping areas, and calling them boutique rooms. Of course, that means the hotel earns two or three times what they had been charging for the single, traditionally-sized room. 

It’s similar to what airlines do now to make more money by jamming more passengers into their formerly-comfortable seating areas. So, when you’re making reservations for big-city hotels, be sure you’re aware that when the word boutique appears, you’ll have to pay a hell of a lot more for a hell of a lot less.