How many hotels exist in the world?

Answer 1

There are 227 hotels in Estonia, which has a population of 1.3 million. Earth's population is 7 billion, so using simple ratios and proportions 227 is to 1.3 million what h is to 7 billion. This gives us 1.2 million hotels world wide.

This assumes Estonia represents an "average" country. Some heavily populated areas of the world may have comparatively few hotels. "Trip Advisor" suggests there are 1012 hotels in Egypt, which has a population of 81 million. Using the same ratio and proportion this yields 87,500 hotels world wide.

The According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association suggests there are close to 50,000 hotels in the US alone. The US has 5% of earth's population, but probably also a much higher hotel to population average than most of the rest of the world. Some nations will have more, and others less, but if we assume an average hotel to population of about half the value of the US, we can estimate earth's total number of hotels to be around 500,000, or half a million.

According to Trivago, a site used to compare hotels around the world, there are 718,507. It finds all hotels (motels, inns, etc.) and tries to find the lowest price from over 200 different websites.