7 of the Oldest Hotels in the World

LaLiT Great Eastern Kolkata, India

This upscale resort claims to be the longest continually operating luxury hotel in Asia, having opened in 1840 under the name Auckland Hotel. Before then, the building was used as a bakery in the 1830s for staff of the East India Company. Since opening as a high-end hospitality hotspot, the Lalit has hosted the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh, Rudyard Kipling, Queen Elizabeth II, Nikita Khruschev and Mark Twain, who called it the “best hotel east of the Suez.”