Do you really think they would be interested when the walls don't go all the way to the ceiling?

Neighboring guests would hear everything:eek:

I think you can charge extra for that feature. :D

this can be a good thing, for someone like me who dosen't want to touch anything in public toilet with my hands and is super paranoid about sleeping on a hotel bed where there have been funny business taken place. i watched this programme on tv where people found semem stain on 5 star hotel beds ... yuck!

I would hold off on using this line of thinking in marketing. Advertising that odds are, no one has done 'it.' in the bed may not work too well.

no, i am not intending to use that as part of the marketing, :) i am just making a point.

sneak preview of our first hotel room.

Some improvements are made during the prototype stage: side walls (inter-tenancy walls) are now go all the way up to the ceiling (the top of the walls are installed with mirrors so it doesn't looked closed in), there are louvers on the top of the wall along the corridor side which can be opened or closed for ventilation and privacy, so all the rooms now are fully private.

All the rooms are also mechanically ventilated.

That head looks suspiciously familiar to me. :D

he is our test pilot

more photos

mood lighting that help with your biological clock, helps you sleep and wakes you up gentlely

more photos

I'm unable to sleep in a shared dorm, but I still travel on a backpacker budget so I always book the cheapest single room available when I travel. That's what I did when I went to New Zealand.

Maybe I was lucky - and I don't think the hostel I went to still exist - but I was able to find a reasonably large single room (shared bathroom) with a tv for 30$NZD a night in Auckland.

I see many, many issues with this project, but the most important one is that the fact walls don't go all the way to the ceiling is a recipe for disaster.

First, you would face a lot of angry customers when they check-in because the vast majority of people expect a room with 4 walls that go all the way to the ceiling, even if hotel concept is a "airplane hotel". It doesn't matter if it's written on the website, or if it's written in the confirmation email. People expect 4 walls when they book a private room.

Also, having myself already sleep in a similar hotel in NYC, you only need one noisy or smelly guest to ruin the experience of every guest. Because there's always a bad apple in the lot, it would translate into a lot of negative feedbacks on tripadvisor and such and good rating on those websites are extremely important. I would personally NEVER sleep again in such a hotel and IMO there is close to zero difference between a shared dorm and this.

Also the concept, I'm afraid, is not that cool for the average backpacker or flashpacker. There are cooler options available like sleeping in a jail in Napier, for example.

People usually associate sleeping in a plane with a bad sleeping experience, and the majority of people who arrive in Auckland just had a long, tedious flight. The last thing they want is to go to replicate the experience.

39NZD$ is too expensive, you can find a slighly cheaper single room (with a tv) with more space in Osaka or Hong Kong. Considering they are amongst the most expensive cities in the world, why would a miniscule room, not totally private in Auckland be more expensive (or the same price)?

Because space in New Zealand doesn't matter as much as in Hong Kong or Japan, I just don't see any point to this. For 40$ a night, you could offer small single rooms with shared bathroom and it would probably be much more popular. I find there is a lack of "real" cheap single rooms in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.

What Tune Hotels do is great, and I wish the concept would be replicated everywhere in the world. They offer cheap single rooms and you have to pay for extra like wifi. Why not doing something similar, with the hotel having a theme; the airport theme could be used but differently.

Sorry if it's negative but I hope it's helpful.

thanks thedistillers, your comment is very helpful, we have had lots of feedback from people about the walls not going up all the way to the ceiling, so we have now re-designed the pod to have full height walls. it's comments like this really made a difference to the final out come, thanks again.

your comment on the price is also very helpful, i think this need to be priced between a dorm bed (which is about $25) and a large single room (about $40)