Plenty of scope for stories and poems here.

First of all, the hotel itself. How big is it? Is it a magnificent, expensive place, or is it quiet and cosy, or run-down and in need of some TLC?  How many rooms? The more rooms, the more stories that take place in those rooms. Who’s staying there? There’s a story behind every door…

Maybe it’s the view from someone who works there – you’ve got receptionists – daytime or overnight, cleaners, maintenance men, security, room service, chefs, waiters, if it’s posh or your story is set in the past, there may be a commissionaire, and bellboys, lift attendants, somebody to park your car…

Where is the hotel? Here or abroad? Seaside or city or countryside?  Let your imagination run riot. Or is it in the future, perhaps in space or on another planet?

What happens? Does your story take place in the hotel – in the lobby, bar, kitchens, conference room, ballroom or bedroom or does it take place outside the hotel – in its grounds or gardens or on its concrete steps or in its car park or round the back of the hotel where it’s much less glamorous than the showy interior? 

What’s the reason for visiting the hotel? What are your characters feeling about their visit? Excitement for their holiday? Dread at sitting through another needless conference? Glamorous because it’s an awards ceremony. Nostalgia at revisiting old haunts. Boredom because it’s just another hotel in another town as perhaps your character is in a band or is a stand-up comic on tour. Maybe it’s a deserted hotel, and your characters shouldn’t be there.

Maybe it’s a half-finished hotel you’re having to stay in.

Or is it a more sordid reason, perhaps the professional co-respondent situation, where in the past people would hire themselves out to be ‘caught’ in a hotel bedroom to provide evidence of adultery for divorce cases (Wallis Simpson’s husband contrived such a situation so that he could divorce her, although he didn’t hire somebody, one of Wallis’s friends agreed to be the other party under the assumed name of Buttercup Kennedy.)

Or maybe it’s to do with illicit money changing hands, or perhaps something to do with the paranormal – a hotel has seen a lot of people though its doors there’s a lot of memories in there…

As usual, who, where, what, when, why and how…