Home Valentra Hub An index of hotels
Who writes this index, how properties are chosen, and what we deliberately do not do.
Valentra Hub is an independent editorial index of four kinds of hotel: art hotels, capsule hotels, casino hotels and ice hotels. It exists because these categories are consistently written about badly — reduced to a novelty photograph, a specification grid or a booking funnel — and because they reward being described in ordinary sentences.
The index is international. We are not writing from inside one country and we do not present ourselves as a local guide anywhere; properties are selected on what they are, not where they are.
A property earns an entry when it does something that cannot easily be substituted — a collection that shapes the plan of the building, a compartment format refined past the point of novelty, a gaming floor set inside a building with its own history, a structure rebuilt out of ice every winter. Fame is not a qualification and neither is price.
Every hotel described here exists and is, at the time of writing, operating. Where a hotel is seasonal, we say so.
Hotels change: rooms are refurbished, restaurants close, a seasonal build opens later than planned. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it. Details are on the contact page.