I’m in a hotel room, but I’m not writing this Postcard from a desk or even from the edge of my bed.
I can’t stare out the window, hoping pertinent things to write about will come to mind. That’s because this izZzleep Hotel ‘room’ is a 1.8 metres-long by 91 centimetres-high box, one of 40 capsules that have opened as a concept hotel in Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport.
For US$40 (Dh147) a night, you get free Wi-Fi, a fold-down TV and a complimentary pair of socks. Stopping by for a siesta sets travellers back $7.50 for a two-hour minimum stay, and to use a shower costs $6.80, although this is included in the nightly rate.
There’s a memory-foam mattress, temperature control and an alarm to make sure guests don’t miss onward flights, though that’s a feature I don’t risk using – maybe it works fine, maybe it doesn’t; maybe I muck up setting the alarm and oversleep. I deem it not worth experimenting with, and in any case, there are strategically-placed electricity outlets and USB ports for recharging your phones and tablets.
Phone calls are not allowed in or outside of the capsules and guests are not allowed to bring food into the hotel, but on this particular evening, it’s exactly what I need.
Overnighting at the airport spares me from having to face taxis and traffic in a city I’ve never visited before, among people who speak a language I don’t understand.
I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll make my early morning plane onward to Ciudad Juárez because check-in is just a five-minute walk away.
The owners say the idea for opening this type of hotel, that is a first for Central America, came from right in front of their noses.
“We had a job that had us travelling continuously. As frequent travellers waiting for flights and looking at people sleeping on the floor, the idea just came up,” says manager José Martin.
After two years of investigation and development works, izZzleep Hotel came to fruition.
“Although we are far from calling this a business, the results are encouraging: in three months, we’ve had visitors from 64 countries, [of whom] 48 per cent are women and 52 per cent are men.”
Sleep pods and capsule hotels have previously been installed at airports including Abu Dhabi, Naples, Berlin, Helsinki and across Asia.
When a room at a standard airport hotel anywhere in the world can run into hundreds of dollars (the nearby Hilton Mexico City Airport, for example, starts at $170 a night), their budget-friendly prices and unmatchable locations should make them an ideal alternative for travellers.
But as convenient and cheap as they are, the model has never really taken off. They look a bit cool and are certainly a novelty, yet pod accommodation has never hit mainstream.
Maybe it’s their portrayal as a snapshot of life in a distant, dystopian future – take Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror or any of a host of sci-fi films – that has scared people off.
One reason that comes to mind as I try swinging my right leg up into the top-level capsule is that they’re not particularly easy to get into. “Head first, no, leg first,” I debate with myself (it’s head first, as it turns out).
And while capsule hotels are great for a few hours’ sleep between flights or as a quiet place to chill, you can’t comfortably work on a laptop or, at the izZzleep Hotel at least, down a Big Mac and fries. Or even a salad.
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Major international airports such as Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol have full-length seating and large armchairs in designated ‘quiet zones’ for sleeping that, while hardly ideal for those with a mountain of luggage in tow, meets most travellers’ demands.
izZzleep Hotel manager Martin says the main challenges facing the model are convincing airport authorities of their market potential, and in getting travellers to take to what is a minimalist, Japanese-origin idea. But he is hopeful they will catch on.
“The concept is just starting to be rediscovered, like the case of coffee shops years ago.
“Before Starbucks, only a few countries had lots of coffee shops, but now it seems like every urban space on Earth has one,” he says.
Still, even with the Benito Juárez International Airport last year becoming the second busiest in the Americas, the snaking lines of people to be seen sleeping on its floors point to the fact that $40 is something many still choose not to pay.
For me, at least, it was totally worth it. Before I know it, I’m woken by the alarm on my fully-charged phone, and with thousands of kilometres still to cover in the day ahead, my body feels, mercifully, very well rested indeed.
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In Full Flight: A Story of Africa and Atonement
John Heminway, Knopff
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Starring: Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Jenny Ortega
Director: Tim Burton
Rating: 3/5
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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