Capsule hotel group Yotel has announced its third property, and its first to be located airside. The hotel will be built just after passport control close to Pier D at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, and is due to open in early 2008.
Yotel's first two properties (at Gatwick's South Terminal, and the soon-to-open Heathrow hotel at T4) are both situated landside, and the new airside Yotel at Schiphol is likely to attract transiting passengers looking to avoid visas and customs queues at the airport.
The exact make-up of the 55-room hotel has not yet been confirmed, but guests can expect similar quarters as the Gatwick property (see online news June 28), with a mixture of standard and premium cabins. All cabins include ensuite shower facilities (although Yotel is considering bunk bed-style rooms with communal washrooms for future properties), flatscreen TVs, music jukebox and workdesk.
Of course regular travellers through Schiphol will know that the airport already has an airside property in the form of the Mercure Schiphol Terminal. The two-star hotel differs from Mercure's normal three and four-star offering, and has 33 rooms located near Piers F and G. Yotel will be looking to share in the 44-million odd passengers passing through the airport each year, a figure that has attracted chains such as Hilton, Sheraton, Radisson SAS, Marriott, NH and Best Western to locate properties on or close to the airport.
The Yotel property at Heathrow is due to open in September, and the group says that negotiations are under way for several other international locations, with announcements expected later this year.
For more information visit yotel.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
