 Many working barges have been converted into floating hotels of varying degrees of luxury.This trend began in the 1960s and has now grown into a network of hotel barges operating on the canals and rivers of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK.The majority of hotel barges operate on the French waterways, where the national authority Voies Navigables de France estimates their economic importance at 60 million euros of local income, or roughly 5% of all waterway tourism business in France.