No screws, bolts or interlocking pieces. Ikea launches into a business that doesn't involve assembling furniture by customers: hotels. To start the new adventure, the Swedish low-cost furniture giant expects to invest around one billion euros. The news was given by a company executive, Harald Mueller, project manager.
"We have been looking for properties in Europe for a while - the manager told the Swedish newspaper Sevenska Dagbladet - and we will announce within a few weeks where we will open our hotels".
According to the newspaper, Ikea intends to open "at least 100 hotels" in Germany, Belgium, Great Britain, and in the Netherlands and the Baltics. The construction of the hotels will be financed by revenues from the Ikea brand, which the company recently valued at 9 billion euros.
The hotels will not carry the Swedish company logo and will be managed by a hotel company. As strange as it may seem, not even the furniture that will furnish the new structures will be signed by Ikea.
The total planned investment is 1,2 billion euros, according to Svenska Dagbladet, although the company has not yet provided any figures. Mueller explained that Ikea wants to open low-cost and practical hotels in central locations. “We will get rid of everything that is superfluous, such as restaurants in hotels – he specified -, and we will provide hotels with a good breakfast, high-speed internet and an efficient reception, without formalities when leaving the room”.
