Citizen M

Just outside Schiphol Airport, near Amsterdam, Citizen M is a new hotel concept making a virtue out of self-service and good wireless connectivity.

In an increasingly mobile world (M stands for mobile), they reckon that many guests would happily swap the luxury of expensive room service in favour of a hotel that offered free international calls to landlines, touch-screen self-check-in and wifi throughout. The hotel’s bold, modernist design, moreover, is also likely to attract the design-loving masses.

The new hotel, which started taking bookings in October, will compete with the more podlike Qbic, easyHotel and Yotel!, and is similarly hi-tech. The site thinks that guests “will love the Philips designed touch screen mood pad. It allows you to control everything in your entire room– television, window blinds, temperature, coloured lighting, and wake-up alarm themes.” Downstairs looks especially good. A self-service 24-hour food outlet, canteenM, sells fresh wraps, sashimi, Dutch beer and Italian coffee.