How do we feel about tiny hotel rooms?
While the “tiny house” movement has captured the imagination of travellers the jury is out on the trend to compact hotel chambers.
How do we feel about tiny hotel rooms? Are we for or against? In or out?
While the “tiny house” movement has captured the imagination of travellers, mostly due to striking locations and a sense of isolation, the jury is out on the trend to compact hotel chambers. There was a time when the smallest room in the hotel was the cheapest and usually set aside for that long-ago breed of travelling salesmen who needed just enough space to lie down with their samples of shoe polishes and magic cleaning cloths.
But now that tiny rooms are all the rage, tariffs have soared to meet demand. They are sought after for novelty value and social media showing-off.
When journeying alone, I like the inherent cosiness of small guestrooms, as long as the basic facilities are to hand. But when we are entering hipster-groover land, it’s often style over substance. The tiny room is a marketing ploy and does not come with a tiny price-tag.
Let me cite a recent example, without naming the property and inciting legal intervention.
Negotiating the room’s layout results in bruised knees and knocked elbows
The bedside table is the size of a stool so placing reading glasses, tumbler of water and iPhone is impossible. It is just big enough to hold the in-house iPad, which contains the mysteries of the universe, if only you could reach your spectacles to read the screen at 2am. Negotiating the room’s layout results in bruised knees and knocked elbows, even when scuttling sideways like a crab. The rather cute little ensuite has a shower of tornado force but no bathmat or hook to hang a damp towel. The basin is so big it occupies the entire bench space. The mirror is set at the height of an AFL ruckman.
The coffee machine is a high-end model and almost larger than the bathroom. Using it requires a mechanical engineering degree. It roars into action like a rocket launcher but where are the cups? They’re in a wardrobe drawer, kept there for “space-saving purposes”, I am later informed by a guest enhancement facilitator in a lobby the size of a warehouse. The elusive cups are alongside a minuscule shoe polish kit. I wish it were an actual old tin of burnished chestnut or oxblood polish, summoning the ghosts of salesmen forever traipsing the roads. Did I mention the wardrobe is “reimagined retro”? Oh, blast, you already guessed.
For a basic night’s kip, why am I being so narky? Good question.
Because a bog-standard airport motel room would cost so very much less. I wouldn’t need to process a designer’s vision of “reinterpreted lifestyle”. I could turn out the lights using an up-down switch by the bed. My breakfast would not be foraged by phantom artisans …