"The hotel is there."

Translation: A szálloda ott van.

[WilliamsBlair]

I don't think szálloda was one of the words we could choose! I clicked hotel instead but got in wrong.

[Kathy979841]

There was no szalloda to choose only hotel

[NiclasLang]

Ott a szálloda not accepted?

[vvsey]

It's a good sentence. I would translate it as "There's the hotel".

[Judit294350]

But "where" sentences need van.

[vvsey]

Yes, that is generally true. But sometimes we can omit the "van". Note, this is not to be confused with the cases where "van" is not permitted.
"Ott a szálloda." is one such case. Officially, it is "Ott van a szálloda.", but we can, and we often do, omit the "van". Interestingly, we can NOT omit the "van" from
"A szálloda ott van." Go figure.

It seems to me that these "Itt ... "/"Ott ...". kind of sentences can frequently have their "van"'s dropped.

There was a long discussion about the phenomenon of the optional "van" here, check it out (it takes some scrolling):
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/16487634

[Andras_Gyep]

Can i say "a szálloda ott áll"? in english both "The hotel is there"and "The hotel stands there" are pretty much the same.

[WilliamsBlair]

Andras_Gyep, no I don't think that would be an accurate translation for "The hotel is there. " It's true that your suggestion has a similar meaning, but it's still different than the one provided.

I am only a student of Hungarian, not an expert, but if the given sentence had said "The hotel stands there" then I think you'd be correct. But it's not quite that.