Ikea to launch hotel line
Soon-to-be customers wait in line before dawn for the grand opening of the Ikea store in Centennial, Colorado, U.S., on Wednesday, July 27, 2011. The 415,000-square-foot Centennial location, opening today, will be the 38th store in the U.S. for Ikea, the world's largest home-furnishings retailer. Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg Credit: Bloomberg News
A few years back, there was the man (no names, as he's been given enough ink) who slept in a New Jersey Ikea. Perhaps that's where the Scandinavian retail giant got the lightbulb burst to start a budget hotel chain?
Whatever planted the seed, the home goods monolith is doing it big, not surprisingly. Inter Ikea, owner of Ikea's intellectual property rights, has plans for 100 European hotels, The Associated Press reports, with the initial two opening in Germany in 2014.
Don't expect Ikea's contemporary furniture in the rooms, though they will have that Nordic aesthetic thanks to the designers involved. But the prices we've come to expect from Ikea will be built in.
"Aside from that, guests won't really recognize Ikea in it at all," Harald Muller, a Brussels-based business development manager of Inter Ikea's property division, told The Associated Press.
