IKEA and Marriott to open up low-cost hotel chain Moxy

No IKEA showroom

The new chain was officially announced last
Tuesday during the International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin. Construction
on the first hotels should start this year and the first Moxy, in Milan, will
be open to the public in 2014.

The hotels will pop up close to office
parks, airports or train- and subway stations. Each hotel will have between
150 and 300 budget rooms, for about 60 euro per night. Young travellers will be
the target audience for Moxy Hotels. Hotels are planned for Belgium, Italy,
Germany, Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Great
Britain.

The hotels will not be an IKEA showroom: they will not be designed nor furnished by the world’s
largest home store. There will however be an IKEA
twist: the hotels will be constructed using prefab modules, which will be
fitted together on the spot… just like IKEA furniture.

Half a billion dollar for budget hotels

Marriott is cooperating with Inter Hospitality, the IKEA
branch that invests in the hotel
sector. Inter Hospitality will be the promoter of the project and will own the
first Moxy hotels. The Norwegian company Nordic Hospitality will manage the hotels
for Marriott. Nordic Hospitality already runs a couple of Marriott hotels in
Scandinavia.

According to the Wall Street Journal the Inter
IKEA Group will invest about 400 million euro.
Inter IKEA Group is controlled directly by IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad and his
family, through their Interogo Foundation in Liechtenstein. Budget hotels are very ‘hot’ in these
times of crisis: last year their occupancy rose to 70% (compared to 67.1% in
2011). IKEA prefers investing in hotels because that sector is “relatively
stable in these economically turbulent times in Europe.”