BEIJING, CHINA — A hotel in Beijing, China recently refurnished the hotel’s stairwell into rooms built for the needs of “specific” guests, charging up to S$120 for the stay.
The three rooms were located on the second, third and fourth floors, and required guests to go down a short flight of stairs before reaching the room, Beijing Evening News reported on Monday (Sept 25).
Images show that the 6 sqm room features a single bed, a small hanging desk and an air-conditioning unit, as well as a kettle and several bottles of mineral water with compliments of the hotel.
The bed, which fits snugly in a stairwell landing, leaves seemingly little to no walking space, let alone space to store one’s baggage.
The hotel’s manager reportedly told Chinese media that there was a demand for simple rooms, leading the hotel to repurpose “under-utilised’ spaces to meet these needs.
A video, uploaded by a blogger on video platform Billibilli in January, shows him waking up and washing his face in the sink conveniently placed beside the bed, and later proceeding to read a book on the closed toilet bowl.
He then gives viewers a tour of the room’s amenities, saying: “Most importantly, the room has a bed and toilet.
“However, the bed is too close to the toilet. The smell is quite ‘subtle’.”
Viewers seemed less than impressed with the room’s setup, with some comparing the design to that of a prison cell.
Comparing the cost with that of renting a proper apartment, one online user wrote: “Why do some people choose to live in such a small room with a toilet near the bed? It’s depressing.”
Despite the negative online sentiments, the hotel owner had told the media there that the compact rooms were in high demand, adding that guests were often made up of patients and their relatives from a nearby health centre and students preparing for tests, SCMP reported.
COOPED UP IN A ‘COFFIN’
Elsewhere in Shanghai, China, a one-bedroom loft measuring just 5 sqm, which was reportedly going for 1,600 yuan (S$305) a month, had also sparked a debate over its “extreme” conditions.