When you’re stuck at the airport, wouldn’t it be great if there was a place where you could take a shower and a nap or just close the door and watch a movie or get some work done?
In some airports there are. A great example is the YOTEL, the short-stay hotel located inside the South Terminal at London’s Gatwick airport.
The brainchild of Simon Woodroffe, a brash British entrepreneur who also created a conveyor belt-style chain of sushi bars called YO! Sushi, the 46-room Gatwick YOTEL offers rooms that are a cross between what you might find in a Japanese pod-hotel and an amenity-rich first-class airplane cabin. But these rooms also include full showers, flat-screen TVs, wireless Internet access and room service.
Travelers can book a YOTEL room for as little as four-hours. So it seems ideal for those times when you’ve just come off a long flight or have a super early departure in the morning. Prices start at about $50 for a standard cabin for the minimum four-hour booking, but during August, to celebrate the GATWICK YOTEL’s first anniversary, overnight stays will go for under $100.
Not traveling through Gatwick? There’s a 32-cabin YOTEL in Terminal 4 at London’s Heathrow airport and another YOTEL scheduled to open at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport later this year.
So sleep tight – but sleep fast!
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