If you’ve ever spent a few hours at a Yotel in Heathrow, Gatwick or Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, then you know these short stay hotels with compact rooms are a blessing for those who need to nap and recharge after a long flight or be at the gate really, really early in the morning.
There’s an off-airport Yotel in New York City that still has compact rooms, but it operates more like a ‘regular’ hotel, with full day rates, a restaurant and a place in the lobby to store luggage.
But luggage storage is unusual in that there’s a giant robotic arm – called the Yobot – that puts luggage in a lobby vault and retrieves it when asked.
Yotel is turning the Yobot into YobotSanta this season: the Yobot may bring guests staying at the Yotel New York a gift from the vault before storing their luggage – and YobotSanta is also giving away gifts online.
You can choose a virtual YOBOT bin each day for a chance to win a range of travel surprises, such as round-trip travel certificates on JetBlue, two-night Yotel stays in New York and luggage and travel accessories from Flight 001.
I was a lucky reporter and got to stay at the Denver International Airport’s new Westin hotel on opening night.
I skipped the parties, choosing instead to work and enjoy the views of the mountains from my room and put together this story for CNBC.
Courtesy Denver Westin International Airport
Chicago O’Hare International Airport has one, and so does Detroit Metropolitan Airport and Orlando International Airport. There are also two at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, while Frankfurt Airport has three.
Now, Denver Airport has an on-site hotel too.
The 519-room Westin at Denver International Airport is open for business, with the city now joining the ranks of travel hubs that can send travelers to their destinations, or put them up for the night in style.
The city- and county-owned airport spent at least $580 million to build the hotel (Denver owns it, while Westin manages it), an adjacent public plaza and a commuter rail station that will begin operation in April.
The swooping, sleek Gensler-designed Westin is adjacent to the city’s iconic tented main terminal, which sits 25 miles from the city center. The hotel walls are all glass, and the top-story pool and fitness center offer views of the Rocky Mountains. There’s public art inside and out, a conference center, and welcoming places to eat or have a drink. At some point, an airport security checkpoint with 20 lanes will open in the building.
While the Denver Westin will certainly offer a convenient landing spot for business and leisure travelers, airport and city officials are confident it will be much more than that.
In fact, they’re banking on it.
These new amenities “are the first steps toward leveraging [the airport] as an economic powerhouse that will create tens of thousands of new jobs and bring more business opportunity to Metro Denver,” Mayor Michael B. Hancock said at the ribbon-cutting for the hotel’s opening.
Cities across the nation are moving to take advantage of the movement to transform airports into makeshift resorts. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $4 billion plan announced earlier this year for LaGuardia Airport contains an option to create a hotel.
Cuomo also announced that the empty Eero Saarinen-designed TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport would be transformed into the $250 million TWA Flight Center Hotel.
Hancock told CNBC that when he joins airport officials at international marketing events “we hear that international passengers expect a quality hotel and a train connection to downtown” at the airport. “Having these things helps us compete as an airport and as a city on an international scale,” he said.
There’s another upside to having this high-profile hotel on airport property.
“Right out of the box this is going to generate money for us — nonaeronautical revenue. We estimate a million to 2 million a year starting next year,” said the airport’s CEO, Kim Day. “That helps keep the costs to air carriers low and incentivizes them to add more flights.”
A hotel (and a train station) were included in the original plans for the airport, which opened in 1995. But, over the years, attempts at getting the hotel project going were repeatedly thwarted. First, it was the downturn in air traffic after 9/11. Later, it was the economic recession, Day told CNBC.
While he’s looking forward to spending a night at what he describes as “one of the most interesting-looking hotels I’ve seen in a long time,” business travel expert Joe Brancatelli keeps wondering why it took the airport so long to make the hotel happen.
“Does Denver airport need a quality hotel? Of course it does,” said Brancatelli. “Will this one change the competitive balance of airports around the country? Absolutely not. The big win here that an important airport with a relatively large number of international flights finally has a hotel.”
For months, a countdown clock and a bed inside the main terminal at Denver International Airport have been reminding travelers that a new Westin hotel was under construction next door.
I’ll be there on Friday for the official ribbon cutting ceremony, but stopped by on Monday for a tour while workers were rushing to ready the hotel for guests.
Signs point to the plaza leading to the hotel and the transit station (which won’t open until April), but the doors don’t yet open.
When the doors do open, travelers will be able to walk directly from the main terminal, across a covered plaza, to the hotel.
Part of the hotel’s commissioned artwork, waving metal blades mimic the grasses of the Colorado plains.
The 6th floor Sky Lobby has a Sky Lounge bar and this open seating area.
The 11th floor pool offers views to downtown Denver – and the mountains beyond.
If you want to relax or catch a nap at most airports you have few options beyond slumping uncomfortably in a chair or trying to find a spot in a less-trafficked part of a concourse and stretching out on the floor.
Some airports try to help.
Boston, Philadelphia and Charlotte Douglas International in North Carolina are among the growing number of airports with rocking chairs scattered throughout the terminals. And lounge-style chairs are provided at airports in Amsterdam, Paris and Singapore, and in Los Angeles’ Tom Bradley International Terminal, which opened Sept. 8.
The options expand if you’re willing to open your wallet for the privilege of closing your eyes.
At Amsterdam’s Schiphol and London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports, you can book a small, short-stay room at a Yotel that includes a bed, flat-screen TV, full bathroom and Wi-Fi.
For about $40 travelers can catch an hour of zzzs in the Napcabs at Munich Airport or in the Snoozecubes at Dubai Airport.
At airports in Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta and Philadelphia, Minute Suites offers rooms with a daybed, TV, sound-masking system, desk and Wi-Fi at hourly rates that start at $34.
“Sixty-two percent of our guests are there to sleep, the remainder to relax or work,” said Daniel Solomon, co-founder and CEO of Minute Suites.
Minute Suites will open a second location at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport next year and has signed on to open at branch at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport as well.
And in an effort to create a “calm and peaceful space for passengers to relax, rest and even sleep” Helsinki Airport in Finland will soon replace a gate waiting area with a hushed zone.
Scheduled to open by the end of September, the Relaxation Area will be free to passengers and offer a variety of resting and napping options, including a Uni-Solution chair, several versions of a Silence Sound chair and a sleeping tube just coming out of production.
The area is free to travelers, who will be polled as part of a study being conducted in cooperation with Aalto University School of Business. Questions will include which chair they like best, how such an area should be operated and how the services compare with membership lounges.
The pilot program is being run by a city-owned development company, Vantaa Innovation Institute, as part of its Airport Concepts project. Six Finnish companies are providing products for the pilot, which is costing about $63,000 and will include decorative elements that reflect the country’s culture.
“We hope to catch all kinds of passengers and offer a service for those who don’t use airport lounges,” said Ilmari Halme, development coordinator for Vantaa Innovation Institute.
(My story about resting and napping options at airports first appeared on CNBC Road Warrior)
If you’ve endured long layovers at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport or at London’s Heathrow or Gatwick airports, Yotel may already be part of your travel vocabulary.
New York City Yotel room – Courtesy Yotel
Since 2007, the small chain has been well-known for its short-stay, in-terminal hotels offering hip, ultra space-saving rooms inspired by the design of first-class airplane cabins. Because the average stay is about seven hours, these locations have a very healthy 200 percent occupancy rate.
The brand’s first off-airport hotel was the 669-room Yotel New York, which opened near Times Square in 2011 and quickly became popular with both leisure and business travelers seeking affordable, amenity-rich lodging in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
“It’s a mix of tourists looking for a bargain and business people on a budget,” said Chris Heywood of NYC & Company, the city’s marketing and tourism organization. “You feel like you’re in a cool place, but the amenities make it easy to get business done.”
Now a deal has been announced for construction of a 600-room Yotel on Singapore’s bustling main shopping street, Orchard Road, which is home to numerous upscale malls and many four- and five-star luxury hotels.
“Yotel is another fantastic partner, bringing its unique ‘affordable luxury’ and offering travelers even more flexibility in their accommodations selection in the heart of our central district,” said Serene Tan, regional director for Singapore Tourism Board Americas.
Singapore’s Yotel opening is set for 2018.
“We want to use the Singapore deal as a springboard for expansion into Asia and are targeting a number of cities and airports there,” said Yotel CEO Gerard Greene. Meantime, he said, additional Yotel properties are being planned for other major cities and their airports in the United States and Europe. Details about some of these locations will be available in a few weeks, but Greene is confident “there will be sites that will open before Singapore.”
Rooms (“cabins” in Yotel-speak) at the Singapore and other in-city Yotels will have the same ergonomically attentive, compact design as those in New York. There, basic “premium” cabins are about 170 square feet (small even by New York City standards, but larger than the 100 square-foot airport cabins) and include a motorized bed that converts to a couch, a large flat-screen TV and a small desk with multiple power ports. A curtain separates the work/sleep space from the sink, shower and toilet nook, and there are complimentary hot beverages in a 24-hour kitchen on each floor. Room rates (which in New York begin around $200,) include robust property-wide Wi-Fi and a breakfast of muffins and tea and coffee.
Yobot robot stores luggage at New York City Yotel – photo Harriet Baskas
There’s no word yet on whether any of the new Yotels will have a robotic arm, or Yobot, like the one that can be seen tirelessly storing and retrieving luggage in the lobby of the Yotel New York, but I sure hope so.
(My story about the expansion of the Yotel hotel chain first appeared on the CNBC Road Warrior blog)
