It brought us Swedish meatballs, Billy bookshelves and endless queues on London's orbital motorway on Saturday afternoons. Now Ikea is going one step further and opening the Ikea Hostel, where customers can stay overnight if they haven't finished their shopping.
Later this month Ikea in Norway will let shoppers nap down in one of its two Oslo warehouses, an operation that will last a week.
"It will be like an alternative hostel. There will be the regular dormitory with lots of beds stacked up together," said Frode Ullebust, a company spokesman.
"We will also have a bridal suite, with a round bed and a hanging chandelier, and the luxury suite, where customers can enjoy breakfast in bed," he said.
Family rooms will also be available for parents and children.
Ullebust said that, as far as he knew, this was Ikea's first foray into the hotel business. Every night, the 30 lucky few will be able to stack up on meatballs, Norwegian salmon and cranberry mousse as Ikea is offering free dinner and breakfast at the usual canteen.
Whereas many Britons may associate the Swedish furniture company with screaming children, traffic jams in the car park and the occasional riot when a new outlet is opened, it seems that Norwegians see a trip to Ikea as the ultimate tourist attraction.
"Around 900,000 visitors come to visit Ikea during the summer holidays. It's more than what one of the biggest attractions in Norway, the Holmenkollen ski jump, gets in one year," Ullebust said.
"We have five Ikea stores in Norway, all situated next to the four biggest cities, which are all in the south in the country. We found that people from the north of Norway include a visit to Ikea as part of their holidays," he said. "The Ikea Hostel will make the destination complete."
Overnight stayers can check in to their temporary abodes from 10pm, an hour before closing time, but will have to be quick in the morning.
"The shop opens at 10am so if they are lazy, people might get woken up by shoppers testing out their mattresses," Ullebust said.
Customers will also be able to take their bedsheets home.
"It's a nice souvenir," he added. "We will also give them bathrobes with the Ikea Hostel logo on, and some slippers, so they won't get cold at night."
And to top it all off, Ikea fans can join a very private tour of the building.
"Ikea never sleeps. They can go on a tour of the warehouse. They will enjoy Ikea by night," said the spokesman.
In addition, four employees will be on hand to look after the Ikea lodgers.
Eager applicants have until Wednesday to apply for an overnight stay, by filling in a form and saying why they want to sleep at Ikea -- a question many a frazzled shopper may wonder about.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS