Yotel opens its first airside hotel, at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

Amsterdam seems to be Europe’s testing ground for no-frills chic, pod-like hotels. Last year, we wrote about Qbic, a hotel that uses bedroom-plus-bathroom cubes that can be easily installed and removed, allowing for short-term use of vacant real estate. In June 2008, we covered CitizenM, which focuses on high design at low prices, featuring prefab rooms that can be stacked up to build a hotel. And today, British Yotel opened a location at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. We’ve featured Yotel before. Founded by YO! Sushi’s Simon Woodruffe, the hotel’s rooms are–as described on tripadvisor.com by a guest–“just like a space-age train cabin”. Small but not cramped, premium rooms feature a comfortable, handmade bed that slides down to full size, a bathroom with a ‘monsoon’ shower, and a small desk. Standard rooms overlap, creating upper and lower berths in separate rooms, each fitting a wide single bed and a bathroom in just 7 square meters. Both room types include free internet access and plenty of power sockets. Yotel opened locations at Gatwick and Heathrow airports last year, both in the airports’ publicly accessible areas. At Schiphol, Yotel is based airside, accessible only to travellers flying through the airport–many of whom will no doubt welcome a private sanctuary where they can have a shower, take a nap and get some work done without leaving the terminal. Rooms at all three locations are sold per night or for a minimum of four hours during the day. At Heathrow, the hotel is nearing 200% occupancy rate, with rooms being used day and night. In addition to more airport locations–preferably in hubs like Frankfurt or Hong Kong that welcome large numbers of transfer passengers–Yotel also aims to open locations in city centres.