I once stayed in a motel that was much further from any cities. In 1999, I traveled around Australia with a group (of maybe a couple dozen) of Americans. We went to the Worldcon in Melbourne, but we spent the rest of four weeks there traveling around the eastern half of Australia to see various things. We were in a tour bus that we as a group had arranged with a tour company with an Australian driver. We traveled over two days in a route from two places, one on one side of the Outback and the other on the other side of the Outback. We stayed on the night between those two days at a hotel that was in the middle of nowhere. There was a gas station and a restaurant by the hotel. It was necessary to stay in the hotel that night because it would taken too long to travel between the two cities on the two sides of the trip for one day’s ride. The hotel existed purely for the traffic (cars, trucks, buses, etc.) traveling between those two cities.
There’s money coming to that highway. I didn’t drill down for the details (3/3/2025):
I just noticed that I referred to it as both a hotel and a motel. I don’t remember whether it was called a hotel or a motel. Maybe it used some other word for the name of it. Maybe it called itself an inn or a lodge or whatever.
Considering it’s a building, more like get the most depreciation on it, spend little money on upkeep then sell to Motel 6 in a way that when all is said and done, it’s a real-money maker and paper-money loser.
I got bored.
Here’s how the hotel markets itself:
And, FYI, it’s a project of the Navajo Nation:
On April 6, 2021, the Navajo Nation broke ground on a new 54,000 SF La Quinta Hotel near the community of Shonto, at the T-intersection of US Highway 160 and AZ Route 98. The hotel will feature 83 guest rooms, conference rooms, and other amenities. About 80 jobs were created during construction, and an additional 30 permanent jobs will be created when the project is complete. It was anticipated that the hotel would be completed in the summer of 2024. However, the hotel is
in the final stages of completion.
I think it’ll be cool. What a great place for a Western States Doper meetup – virtually no distractions!! 
There’s a small community just up the road, on Highway 98. Yes, I looked on Google Earth.
It’s at an intersection of what I’m guessing are two fairly well-traveled highways, and there’s a gas station next door.
But economically depressed areas have (1) low real estate costs, (2) low labor costs, and (3) often low construction costs. This project also got its financing from Navajo community and economic development organizations that want to create jobs and development more than they want to maximize returns.
Looking at the price per room on the project, especially low construction costs probably aren’t the biggest motivator for putting the hotel there but surplus labor and an economic development goal are probably enough to make it viable.
My folks invested in an unimproved 2-acre parcel in the San Bernardino desert (CA) in the late 1960’s. In 2012, there were buildings within a mile of it, and it was worth about $2,000.