|
|
Twenty years ago the Forte family introduced a basic hotel to sit alongside their roadside eateries. It offered a basic bedroom with an en-suite bathroom, but no dining facilities using instead the services of the adjacent cafés. The Travelodge chain is now one of the largest chains of hotels in the UK, and has many competitors. It seems an almost inexorable law of nature that what starts out as basic provision for overnight stays suffer from what is called ‘facilities creep’. They start off basic but then add facilities to best the inevitable competition. This opens opportunity for others to redefine ‘basic’
Much hype has been published by hotel chains competing to promote their new ‘basic’ brands, from Easy hotels with their claims to be the first to manufacture bedrooms on a production line, to Yotel who are, after nearly two years of hype, just about to open their first hotel in Gatwick Airport.
|
Bedrooms are manufactured on a production line off site, sealed and installed. They are then connected to the already installed services and left sealed until ready for hand-over to the operator. Click the image to see a room plan clearly showing the scale
|
|
"the production line for prefabricated bedrooms and bathrooms is not a new process"
|
To set the record a little straighter 'nitenite' opened in April 2006, and the production line for prefabricated bedrooms and bathrooms is not a new process. It has been used for bedrooms for some time for example, by Express by Holiday Inn where each module incorporates a section of corridor too, and by other chains. Podded bathrooms have been around for longer than I have been in the industry – and that is a long time....
The advantages of this production technique are manifold. Production in a factory enables high levels of quality control to produce a consistent product. It enables locked and sealed modules to be delivered to site, preventing theft, damage or abuse prior to handover. It speeds construction, cutting site time considerably, and enabling different part of the construction process to go on in parallel rather than in tandem. All these bring economic benefits to the developer, lowering capital cost and reducing interest payments etc., whilst reduction in site time also reduces the development costs.
|
Corridors are simply treated with quality finishes similar to those inside the bedrooms
|
nitenite cityrooms
|
