The New Overnight Hotel: Ikea?
Okay.. who doesn’t love Ikea? I mean seriously, it’s every flight attendant’s home decor heaven. It’s cheap, it’s modern, but the only downfall is having to put everything together with those little Allen wrenches.. but hey, this is some interesting news Ikea plans to open 100 hotels across Europe for cost-conscious travelers (i.e flight attendants!)
Hopefully, the hotel guests won’t have to assemble their own furniture. Seriously, I dislike those wrenches. The first hotel is expected to open in Germany with the location to be announced in coming weeks. Supposedly the won’t be called “Ikea” but I don’t see why they can’t, I mean, I could easily make myself at home in that little 450sq apartment they have in every store. I was always amazed and how spacious that apartment felt — I could never get my studio to look or feel like that.
So doing a little digging the Associated Press said that Ikea has actually tried the lodging business once before, in 2007, the company offered overnight accommodations to customers who wanted to extend their shopping hours, but that plan didn’t work out to well (they were probably following their own picture-only-are-you-smarter-than-a-fifth-grader instructions which is why it failed). But we’re not talking about sleeping in the store — even though shoppers in China do anyway. I came across this — apparently it’s common for the Chinese to plan a day at the store to enjoy the a/c, meatballs and apparently the furniture. Who knew?
Anyway, I’m interested in seeing what the first hotel looks like — I wonder if they’ll design a special line of furniture for the hotels or if it’ll be furnished with items available in the store. They could also go the way of Westin and “sell” the heavenly bed and bath-stuff if it’s a hit. I don’t know why but for some reason I really think this is just an interesting concept for them to try again.
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Frank
