In the build up to last year’s football World Cup the budget hotel brand Travelodge cleverly used the event to introduce 152 refurbished roadside hotels to potential customers by selling rooms for two-hour slots at £10 each so that drivers could stop and watch important matches on TV.

The idea is hardly new—Japanese “love hotels” have been doing it for years. But the Travelodge move is part of a growing recognition by hoteliers of the diversity of their customers’ needs.

Simon Woodroffe, the founder of the YO! Sushi restaurant chain spotted that some air travellers require short-term accommodation at airports.
Taking Japanese capsule hotels and British Airways’ first-class design style as his inspiration, he came up with his Yotel concept, due to launch this spring at Gatwick and Heathrow. The first two Yotels will sell small but luxurious cabins in four-hour blocks from £25. The idea is that delayed and transfer passengers can relax privately in a hotel environment, or stay overnight before an early morning departure.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the easyGroup chairman and founder, spotted a similar gap in the market for travellers who just want somewhere to sleep so they can use the money they save for other things. There is already one easyHotel in London, one in Basel and three more on the way (two more in London and one in Budapest).

The hotel giant Accor is also getting in on the act. It recently opened its first Etap hotel in the UK, in Birmingham (left), with stylish but basic en-suite rooms designed for flexible use—with a bunk bed suspended over a double (perfect for families) and 24-hour check-in machines, aimed at time-poor business travellers.

The new sector seems to be flourishing. Accor is opening another 10 Etaps this year, while Travelodge is planning, on average, one new hotel every eight days.