Go niche

Forget your economies of scale. If there’s one guaranteed way to give occupancy rates a boost, build your hotels very small.

As a business model it has worked remarkably well for the Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, who is famous for building one-bedroom “hotels” in the guise of traditional Swedish country cabins.

Their size isn’t the only selling point. It’s where he puts them. Among his best-known innovations is the Woodpecker Hotel, 13m up a 130-year-old oak tree in the middle of a Swedish park. Accessed by a rickety rope ladder – you’ll have fun with the luggage – it’s not the kind of place to crash in after a night on the town. Neither is it one for sleepwalkers. On the other hand, the installation- cum-accommodation has a lot going for it, including bedroom, kitchen and terrace.

If you think it all sounds a bit fishy, check out Genberg’s Otter Inn (pictured), another iconic red cabin with white trim, this time floating on a lake. Residents here really do sleep with the fishes, as the cabin has a downstairs bedroom, again accessed by a ladder, which is three metres below water level. How’s that for privacy?

Both installations have proven enormously popular with guests, but Genberg might have trouble selling bed nights for his next project, the erection of a traditional Swedish summer cabin on the moon, no less. The project is apparently well under way in its bid to get an unmanned spacecraft to drop a form of pop-up cabin on the lunar surface. Now there’s a room with a view.

www.mikaelgenberg.com