h a l f b a k e r yPoof of concept
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Super Budget Inn
Super cheap and simple private hotel room with minimal labor needs | |
Target price for hotel stay: $15 or less for one or two people
Customer walks up to the door of a room, swipes credit card, after card is verified and charged (charged only if this is the first time they have entered that day), door unlocks.
Inside of hotel room is as barebones as possible, probably
measuring about 5’x8’x7’. Essentially it is a bathroom with a flip down bed and air conditioning/heater:
It contains a toilet, sink, shower, extremely small window air conditioner, mounted radiating heater, and a flip down bed with a plastic coated mattress. The floor itself is a bathroom floor with a drain in the middle for showering. The bed must be flipped up for showering (if the customer turns on the shower with the bed flipped down, the plastic coated mattress will not suffer, and will merely need to be wiped off, like spilling water on a table).
The customer has all-in-one bedding waiting for them on a small shelf as well as a towel. All in one bedding would be two sheets sewn together to make a pocket (where the bottom sheet is longer), as well as a blanket sewn to the sheets at the bottom (so that it can be used or not used, but either way is connected to the sheets), as well as a couple of pillows sewn to the longer bottom sheet at the top. The point of the all in one bedding is that it can be quickly collected, washed, dried, and replaced without the need for sorting, or making the bed.
They use the bathroom at night , fold down the bed and put the all in one linens on it, and finally wash up in the morning (again folding up the bed if need be).
At a certain time of day (say noon), all doors unlock, cleaning personal come in, mop the floor, wipe/disinfect the mattress, collect the used linens, set clean linens on the shelf, kick out any stragglers, and close the door where it remains locked and ready for the next customer. The cleaning personal also take note of any damages to the room and if a fee needs to be levied, this is recorded (which they enter into a computer later) and the customers credit card is charged for damages. All told, it should take about 5 to 10 minutes to do this task. On the back end, linens are washed, folded, and put on carts for the cleaning personal to use the next day.
Asakusa Capsule Hotel, $30/night
http://www.yesicanu...l/capsule/index.htm
The kind of hotel proplrhead and twitch are talking about. [jutta, Dec 08 2006]
[link]
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Somewhat baked in Japan -- capsule hotels are great: super convenient, clean, and cheap (albeit roughly $30). |
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The main difference is that unlike your idea, there's a shared bath and rooms are used for sleeping only (and TV watching). Depending on the culture of your clientele you might run into some resistance to sleeping in a room with a toilet. |
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Anyway, it would be great to have something like this as an alternative to smelly hostels. Bunned! |
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Great idea. Only downside is that they would likely be havens for prostitution. |
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I like this idea but proplrhed said it:
Japan's got it down. I believe in airports
or trainstations, can't remember which
one, I saw a picture of a series of
hexagonal tubes against a wall where
people can sleep in while waiting or if
they missed a flight or something, kind
of like on the airplane in the fifth
element movie. If the tubes were small
enough, they could be mobile, being
able to be trucked to large events and
offered to visitors. Maybe you could fit
as much as 20 occupants. I believe that
a room this small should also focus on
mobility. |
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What do you do if you need a pee in the middle of the night? |
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I (the guy who posted the idea) am familiar with coffin hotels. The things I was going for are: greater appeal to mainstream America (particularly people traveling interstate highways) where people are used to private rooms, and low labor costs (no receptionist, and no need for access control to a shared bathroom). |
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Essentially, I think that when you're not in Tokyo, where land is a premium, this style wouldn't be much more expensive than a coffin hotel. |
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Nonethless, the credit card door lock idea could extend to a sleeping cofin (as well as to the shared bathroom/shower stalls) |
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BUN! But I say skip the shower. Just a stainless steel toilet/sink combo and have a concrete platform against the wall for the mattress. That way in a worst case scenario, you can hose down the entire room and let it air dry. For other items like sheets, pillows, towels, etc. they can be available at no charge but you must leave a deposit. That way if you think that having a toga party is a good idea, and you have to rip up a few sheets, no problem. The sheets and towels are yours to keep. I doubt that any building code in the US will permit you to have showering facilities and sleeping quarters in the same room. You are allowed to have a sink and you could get away with putting a toilet in a bedroom (only because there isnt a law against it) but you would be hard pressed to get away with having your bathing area in the same room where you sleep. |
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What about the price of real estate? I think that's the main cost of running a Business Hotel, not the cost of labour. Especially in areas where businesspeople are likely to stay, such as city centers or airports. There is no point setting up a 1000-bed Business Hotel somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where land is cheap. |
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Baked as Hotel Formule 1 in Australia. Shipping container rooms stacked four or five high, with external stairs and walkways built on, card swipe locks. There's one just up the road from my house. |
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// There is no point setting up a 1000-bed Business Hotel somewhere in the middle of nowhere // |
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Actually there is. You would be surprised at how many guests stay at these US Highway motor lodges. Most times you have truckers and general travelers who are on their way from coast to coast or they are driving up or down either coast and so what they do is drive until they are tired. They pull over at one of these ratty motor lodges that were built in the 1950's just so they can sleep, use the toilet, wash up, and then get right back on the road. I have done it several times myself where I checked in at 1AM and checked back out at 4AM giving me just enough sleep to drive another day. |
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Hmm... [BrauBeaton]'s link gave me an idea.
When travelling, stop in front of the police department, commit some minor crime that doesn't hurt anyone, such as peeing in their bushes, doing a burnout in the street, or staging a fake fight between you and your driving companion. Not a serious offense, but one that will land you a night in the slammer. There you go, cheap room and board for the night. |
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Twitch I like your idea, especially for long haul flights. But only if it comes with sedation. Imagine, you climb into your capsule, the air is infused with sleeping gas, you wake up at your destination without enduring nasty airplane food, screaming babies and terminal boredom. Well that's the blue-sky version. In reality, your capsule, like your luggage will end up somewhere other than where you intended. |
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Somehow I doubt that you would be permitted to get any sleep if you got thrown in the slammer. If Bubba is in there and he is feeling a bit frisky you might not want to close your eyes for more than a second. |
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Why is it that police cells always contain a worrying individual called Bubba? |
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You'd think by now parents would have realised the correlation between so naming a child, and the likelyhood of their offspring subsequently getting tattoos and involving themselves with the role of providing a series of 'atmospheric enhancement services' from within the criminal justice system. |
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I actually got the idea from something a friend of mine did. He lost his job, had a number of unpaid traffic tickets and was about to lose his apartment, so he moved his things out, went to the police station, turned himself in, and paid the tickets in time-served. a few weeks later, he got out, found a job, and got another apartment.
He was always a strange character. |
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//Only downside is that they would likely be havens for prostitution// |
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This is a down side? I'd have figured it in as a selling point. |
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