Strategy
- SLEEEP is Hong Kong's first capsule hotel, a concept invented in Japan in the late 1970s that aims to provide cheap, convenient "sleeping pods" for travelers who do not require the services of a full hotel.
- I stayed at SLEEEP on a recent business trip to Hong Kong.
- SLEEEP is ideally located and well-designed aesthetically, but its capsules get hot quickly and do not block out sound, making for a poor night of sleep.
It sounds great on paper - a budget hotel completely designed around getting you the best night of sleep. That's the idea behind SLEEEP, Hong Kong's first capsule hotel.
The reality, however, isn't quite so relaxing.
Located in Sheung Wan, a neighborhood on Hong Kong island near the main business district, SLEEEP caters to solo tourists, overworked Hong Kongers, and harried business travelers by offering them "a breathing space within a suffocating environment," in the words of Jun Rivers, who co-founded the hotel with childhood friend Alex Klot.
"We truly believe that high-quality, sufficient sleep can take us further in both our personal and professional lives," Rivers told Lifestyle Asia last year, shortly after it opened.
While it is ideally located and designed with an Apple-esque eye for minimalist design - it won silver for Design for Asia Awards 2017 - the hotel fails at its most basic purpose.
I stayed at SLEEEP on a recent business trip to Hong Kong. After a long couple of days reporting in Macau, I arrived at the hotel excited for an excellent night of sleep. Instead I found myself overheated, woken multiple times, and altogether turned off by the entire concept.