AMSTERDAM--CitizenM, a new hotel brand that refreshes the notion of turnkey, is selling luxury at a budget price, said Rattan Chadha, company chairman. Not only did CitizenM just open its second hotel Amsterdam, its first, which opened at the Dutch city’s Schiphol Airport last year, is doing bang-up business.
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“We’re getting a lot of business from up markets,” Chadha said. “Everybody’s getting more budget-conscious, so I think we’re in the right place at the right time.” For now, CitizenM, an urban business hotel concept, is confined to Europe. But there are plans to develop the brand in the United States and India, says Chadha, former owner of the Mexx fashion company and a partner of Oberoi International Hotels and Resorts.
An ultramodern, glass-and-concrete box of 230 small rooms (each is 14 square meters, or about 150 square feet), the CitizenM hotel targets mobile travelers who are open to new experiences, respect the locale they’re passing through and relish new technology, Chadha said.
All CitizenMs are new-builds. Because of their turnkey process – rooms are manufactured at CitizenM’s factory in Rotterdam (one in England will turn them out for a CitizenM under construction in Glasgow, Scotland, and two scheduled for London), then brought to the site and slotted into place, fully equipped, along the sides of a central corridor – costs are reduced.
“We want customers to know exactly what they’re going to get,” Chadha said. “There are no surprises. One problem with hotels is they’re very inconsistent because they remodel old properties.”
While Chadha wouldn’t divulge CitizenM construction costs, he claimed development risk and expense drop dramatically with the brand.
“We can open a hotel within six months once we get the permissions,” he said.
The CitizenM ambience
The CitizenM room features a wall-length window, a big, tall-standing bed with storage space underneath, free Wi-Fi, a wall-mounted flat-screen LCD TV offering free films, a tubular shower stall with a rainshower head, a tubular toilet area with a roller door for privacy, and touchless access via a radio frequency identification keycard that automatically stores customer preferences upon check-in.
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| CitizenM guestroom |
The Philips technology includes a room control that can turn the tiny space any color. Concrete Architects designed the hotel, with furniture from Vitra. A CitizenM hotel also includes CanteenM, where guests can grab a sandwich or sushi; a bar, including staffing by baristas 24/7; self-check-in/out kiosks where guests can register preferences, automatically prepping their room for arrival; and lounge and meeting areas. All these touches explain why the CitizenM Schiphol earned the European Hotel Design of the Year award in 2008, along with other honors for innovation, technology and graphic design.
The CitizenM Web site perfectly reflects the property. It’s animated with icons of funky, young travelers, offers branded gifts and accessories including intimacy kits through its eshop, shows the rooms and public areas and offers a citizen community, where guests can post tips and commentary. The blog is divided into exploring, shopping, working and culture, not only potentially creating a community but also generating a database and marketing clues for CitizenM.
In terms of design and style, CitizenM is like a W hotel, which is a brand of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.
“If you walked into the lobby of CitizenM, you’d think you’d walked into a W in New York,” Chadha said. “But the W isn’t an affordable price. We cut corners to come to a budget price. Three- and two-star hotels are actually cheap hotels and you pay a cheap price. At CitizenM, you pay an affordable price, but everything you touch is luxury. That’s the difference. We can do that because of the way the hotel is manufactured.”
Visit the CitizenM Web site and snag a credit crunch special: 69 euro (US$91) per night every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The hotel’s normal rates are 69 euro to 139 euro (US$181), depending on availability.
Global development
The brand has firmed up two sites in London and is busy with sites in Berlin and Barcelona, Spain, Chadha said. The target is to open 20 hotels in all the big cities in Europe by 2012.
“We’re talking to developers in New York and joint-venture partners in India, where we think there’s a huge potential,” he said.
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Rattan Chadha |
However, factories and assembly operations would have to be built for these plans to be executed.
“The target is to set up the factories close to the site where the hotel is going to be to minimize transportation costs,” Chadha.
While CitizenMs will be uniform, each will have its own set of developing partners.
“We need local expertise for land acquisition and local permissions,” Chadha said, adding that the brand’s customers, or potential customers, are located throughout the world.
“We won’t change any of the concept,” he said, acknowledging building codes in America are different from Europe, along with variations in regulations regarding the handicapped and fire protection. “But the concept will be absolutely uniform.”