Generally provided by cheap
British hotels so that they
don't need to serve you a PROPER breakfast.
A Continental Breakfast usually consists of some cheap freeze-dried coffee, some sort of stale pastry and perhaps an old,
soft biscuit if you're fortunate enough.
The name comes from the fact that Hoteliers wish you to believe that our "more culturaly refined" and "
chic" Continental (note, European) cousins, eat this
crap for breakfast themselves, and by eating it you can be JUST as cultured!
Predictably, if you ever happen to stay at a hotel on "The Continent", the chances of them serving you this rubbish are somewhere between silm and none.