Travel ecstasy
Budget hotels from Berlin to Bali: Stay in Madras for $4, Tokyo for $37, or New York for $99. Excerpt from the book 'Cheap Hotels' by Daisann McLane
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Trickle down minimalism
During the 1990s, the hotel industry discovered Modernism in a big way. Suddenly, in just about every international city, there was a "boutique hotel", where the employees, chosen by casting agents, welcomed throngs of trend setters to rooms bare of excess furniture and decorated mainly in shades of white. Outfitted with clever accessories and sleek, brushed stainless steel bathroom fixtures created by famous architects and interior designers, these hotels grabbed the attention of a young, new monied class of travelers, mostly too busy admiring the clever lampshades and built-in desks to notice that there was barely enough space in their pricey hotel room to walk around the bed.
The unspoken little business secret of these boutique hotels was this: Modernism can be very cost-effective. The Japanese have known for years that if you pare a hotel room down to the basics, and avoid fussy details, you can make people comfortable in very small spaces. And the smaller the space per guest, the higher the profit margin.
I watched this trend develop over a few years, from afar, since the price tag on the New Minimalist rooms was too high for my travel budget. But then, late in the decade, the inevitable knockoffs began to appear on the scene. First I noticed that in many recently renovated cheap hotels the color palette had shrunk to shades of gray, black and white. Then, around 1999, I checked into a just-renovated budget hotel in Manhattan, walked into its bathroom and beheld a cone-shaped, steel sink. I knew that Minimalism had trickled-down to the masses.
Personally, I prefer coming back at the end of the day to clean bare walls, rather than calico wallpaper-much more relaxing. On the other hand, I don't enjoy spending the first hour of my hotel stay searching like a bloodhound for the light switch (hint: they're often on the telephone console) and then figuring out how to make them work. If there's a tiebreaker in this dilemma, it is this: In hotels with bare walls (unlike the ones with calico wallpaper), there is almost always a supply of good, strong coffee.
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Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Trickle down minimalism
During the 1990s, the hotel industry discovered Modernism in a big way. Suddenly, in just about every international city, there was a "boutique hotel", where the employees, chosen by casting agents, welcomed throngs of trend setters to rooms bare of excess furniture and decorated mainly in shades of white. Outfitted with clever accessories and sleek, brushed stainless steel bathroom fixtures created by famous architects and interior designers, these hotels grabbed the attention of a young, new monied class of travelers, mostly too busy admiring the clever lampshades and built-in desks to notice that there was barely enough space in their pricey hotel room to walk around the bed.
The unspoken little business secret of these boutique hotels was this: Modernism can be very cost-effective. The Japanese have known for years that if you pare a hotel room down to the basics, and avoid fussy details, you can make people comfortable in very small spaces. And the smaller the space per guest, the higher the profit margin.
I watched this trend develop over a few years, from afar, since the price tag on the New Minimalist rooms was too high for my travel budget. But then, late in the decade, the inevitable knockoffs began to appear on the scene. First I noticed that in many recently renovated cheap hotels the color palette had shrunk to shades of gray, black and white. Then, around 1999, I checked into a just-renovated budget hotel in Manhattan, walked into its bathroom and beheld a cone-shaped, steel sink. I knew that Minimalism had trickled-down to the masses.
Personally, I prefer coming back at the end of the day to clean bare walls, rather than calico wallpaper-much more relaxing. On the other hand, I don't enjoy spending the first hour of my hotel stay searching like a bloodhound for the light switch (hint: they're often on the telephone console) and then figuring out how to make them work. If there's a tiebreaker in this dilemma, it is this: In hotels with bare walls (unlike the ones with calico wallpaper), there is almost always a supply of good, strong coffee.
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