A premium queen “cabin” at the Yotel in New York City. (Image: Yotel)
Say what you will about the size of accommodations in a Yotel property — the London-based company’s lodging concept is certainly innovative, and brings a level of affordability to pricey markets. And one may soon be coming to an airport or city center near you.
The eight-year-old company currently has just four Yotels in operation — airport properties at London Heathrow, London Gatwick and Amsterdam Schiphol, and a city center location in Manhattan. But it has plans for a dozen more over the next couple of years, including city-center U.S. locations in San Francisco, Miami, Brooklyn and Boston, as well as airport locations at Paris CDG and Singapore Changi. More European locations are expected to be announced soon, including London and Geneva; and a 438-unit Yotel is coming to Dubai.
Guest accommodations (Yotel calls them “cabins,” not guest rooms) are significantly smaller than a normal hotel, but with plenty of quality amenities; the company likens them to first class air travel. And the price is right: We checked New York City’s Yotel (10th Ave & W 42nd St near Javits Center & Hudson Yards) and found a premium queen cabin in slow mid-January for $129 a night, for single or double occupancy.
Cabins offer luxury bedding, mood lighting, monsoon rain showers and what it calls a “techno wall” with a flat-screen TV, multiple power plugs and free Wi-Fi.
Check out this video intro to the Yotel NYC.
The San Francisco Yotel, due to debut in 2017, will offer 203 cabins in an overhaul of the old Grant Building at 1095 Market Street (at 7th St- see street view) near Twitter HQ. Besides standard cabins, it promises a new type of “loft-style” rooms and some suites. It will also offer a Club Lounge with meeting/work spaces; a ground floor restaurant; and a rooftop bar.
Also opening in 2017 is a Yotel in Boston, in an 11-story building located in the city’s so-called Innovation District near Boston Harbor. That one will have 326 cabins. And a 250-cabin Yotel is coming to downtown Miami (at 227 NE Second Street), also with a target opening date of 2017.
Readers: Have you stayed in a Yotel? How did you like it?
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I really like the concept and wrote about my experience on my http://www.bugadvisor.com blog – shortlink here: http://wp.me/p2BxLS-1j
The one in AMS did the trick for a seven hour layover.
I don’t get it. Does the robot concierge deliver your luggage to your room or just store it for you near the lobby? And I don’t stay at hotels with only monsoon rain showers. They need to be El Nino rain showers or better.
Seriously, this looks very interesting… another market about to be disrupted?