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.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to