The Prison Hotel

The idea of turning old prisons into hotels is not a new one, and one of the best examples is the Malmaison in Oxford, England, but now I read that Brits are now captivated by a new tourist “hotel” — the notorious World War Two prison Colditz. So I can see the advertising campaign already, “Come to a place that others tried so dam hard to leave, some even died trying, and pay us for the privilege”.

Guests pay £20 a night to stay in the Nazi castle where Allied officers such as legless RAF hero Douglas Bader were held. The guards’ living quarters and offices have been spruced up and 161 beds installed for visitors. Meals are served in the canteen used by wartime staff. Guests get a three-hour tour of tunnels and hidden rooms used by PoWs in ingenious escape attempts.

Colditz, in southern Germany, housed troublesome British officers who had already made repeated breakout bids from prison camps. Birmingham-based battlefield tour specialists the War Research Society have won the right to offer the “prisoner experience”. Official Alex Bulloch said: “The accommodation is spartan but the idea is to give people an idea of what it was like to be there as a PoW.

 “Colditz is the trip of a lifetime for anyone interested in this aspect of the war. To stay under the same roof as the Allied officers is incredible.” More than 30 prisoners escaped from Colditz before US troops came to the rescue in 1945. But I guess it does have a real historical story behind it and a hotel is a sensible use for such a beautiful building, but making money from such a history would not be my idea.

The Underwater Hotel....

Within this blog I have found and written about the Death hotel and the Divorce hotel and to continue the thread of the weird and wonderful hotels of the world, ladies & gentlemen I now give you the Underwater Hotel, otherwise known as the Poseidon Undersea Resort, which is located in Fiji. Really ! a hotel built under the sea, sitting on the sea bed, and made of super plastic, oh I am just not too sure on this one, not sure at all.

Okay so I bet the claustrophobic comment comes up all the time and I bet they have their answer all ready, maybe something to do with the amount of view that eases that sensation would be my guess, but what the feeling that with all that water around you would just want to spent your whole time in the toilet?

The website for this hotel is: www.poseidonresorts.com and all I can really say is go and have a look for yourself and make up your own mind. At some point in my life I would love to visit and stay at all the worlds most unusual, unique hotels and this is definitely one of those, but, and I have to be honest, it is a massive but, I am really not sure I would want to sleep in a plastic bubble under the sea. I would not mind going to a restaurant, or an observation capsule, but actually falling asleep down there just does not appeal.

The idea of building hotels undersea is not new or unique, there is even plans for a £1.5billion project in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, which would of course be a 5 Star super luxury place, but even that does not get me over the idea of falling asleep under the sea. And yes I know that people who go around in submarines do that all the time, but I bet they don’t have a window next to their bed and wake up staring at the fishes’.

The Divorce Hotel

Some time ago I blogged about a hotel in Japan which was aimed for the dead!, Click Here and now I have come across another weird and wonderful idea for a niche market hotel concept, a hotel called the Divorce Hotel, Click Here

A hotel that has set itself up to organise, sort out and confirm your divorce over a weekend while staying in the hotel. OMG, I can’t believe the mind that thought this up. But then again, if you think about it, hotels have played a major part in the act of getting married, and in a lot of cases in the romance before hand, so maybe it is a logical conclusion that a hotel has now completed the circle and offered this. But a hotel doing divorces, as a hotelier it just leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and in a lot of ways I think it damages the romance of our industry.

But lets be fair on the people behind this. They had a business, they needed to find a way of selling rooms and filling the property, just as all hotels have to do. They spotted a gap in the market and filled it, so maybe it is not them that is to blame. After all this would not be generating news coverage if it was not working and if there was not a market for it. Equally if it does work, how long before this becomes a Brand and has hotels all over the world, I can see it in the USA, The UK and across Europe, and I could see it happening fast.

It is also interesting that when you look at the website for the business there are no bedroom, or restaurant pictures, it is just sales pitch and the prices starting from 2,449euro.

But it is sad that our world, our society has come to this, it is sad that the average marriage in the UK last less than 6 years, and it is not the hotels fault these marriages break down, so providing the service is just another example of the creativity of us hoteliers, but I am glad I did not have the idea, even if it turns out to be a massive success, I guess I am just a bit boring, and I just don’t like it.

World's most expensive hotel

As a hotelier I do love looking around the world at all the different variations of hotels. People have come up with a host of different ideas on the same theme. After all a hotel is a hotel is a hotel. But thankfully, different people have different creativity and therefore we end up with copious versions of a hotel.

This hotel, The Marina Bay Sands, is said by many to be the world's most expensive. Although a check on TripAdvisor also shows that like every other hotel in the world, sometimes there are discounts and even a bargin or two. Well a bargin in relative terms.

Now we have to start by saying it really is a superb building, amazing design. But the more I look at images, in truth, the less I like it. But just like all hotels, it is the inside, the heart of the hotel that really matters. So heres a look at just two of the bedrooms. And it is here that we start to see that despite being build in an amazing building, the design of the rooms in nothing special, in truth, this bedroom could be anywhere in the world.

Here are two more images, just so you can get a feel for the place.

Toilet designs ..... #cleverpeople

I do like it when someone takes some really simple, some everyday thing, and adds something to it, changes it up a little, does something inventive and creative with it. These pictures are a good example of just that.

 

But these are just a few, a click onto Google Images and there are heaps of weird examples of this creativity. But I also wonder what would happen if you put something like this into a hotel bedroom, just how would the guests react.

A hotel for the dead !

A hotel for the dead, now that’s something. This one is for real, actual corpses. And it’s pretty luxurious, going from the pictures. It’s a place where your folks check you in, and you wait it out until it’s time for you to be cremated. Also, it’s pretty luxurious.

The hotel Lastel run by Hisayoshi Teramura in Japan’s Yokohama suburbs, looks like any other building from the outside. In fact, young couples mistake it for a regular hotel and come asking for accommodation. But the place is not meant for lovers, or for weary travelers. Only for those who have already made their final exit from this world. The need for such a hotel very much exists in Japan, where there is a wait time of at least four days for a crematorium. With a total of 1.2 million deaths in the country in 2010, the annual death rate is at 0.95%, while the global average is only 0.84%. The Japanese also apparently tend to splurge on funerals, on the cost of flowers, coffins and memorial services. Mr. Teramura seems to have found a business opportunity in the area of death.

And if you think about it from a hotelier point of view, it has some real advantages, no guest complaints, no guests posting up on TripAdvisor after their stay, no rush for the breakfast buffet, no noise complaints and the guests won't steal anything like normal guests always do.

Have you listened to TED ? #TED #TEDTalks

By chance I came across a series of YouTube video's from an organisation called TED. I was doing some research into the use of video, and the vast and rapid increase of video content for the hotel industry. As is always the case, my industry does appear to be quite a bit behind the curve on this, but the actual use of video is far more advanced than I thought.

So I found this website, www.TED.com, and a video on it that was talking about the use and power of video for what they were trying to achieve. Ted is all about the wonderful concept of sharing ideas and knowledge, and this video was about the speed and benefit of doing so. I must admit that while the video I wanted to watch was only about 18 minutes I was hooked on their site for over 3 hours, watching a whole host of different speakers, and over and over, as each video pasted I kept seeing and believing in the superb power of video.

So to all my friends who are hoteliers, this may not be the first time you are hearing this, but I bet it is one of the first times, when it comes to selling your product, building your SOP's, supporting industry best practise, improving your training and making it more fun, video will be your future. You have been warned.

And as for TED, well I am heading back to listen, and watch, more of the TedTalks. It really is inspiring, creative, inventive and thought provoking stuff.