BY HOURS, a Spanish hotel-reservation platform that allows customers to rent rooms in three-hour slots, is looking to expand into Britain. Travelmole reports that the website aims to sign up 25 hotels in the country by the end of the month, although so far only six have taken the plunge.

Many people, when bringing to mind short-stay hotel rooms, will no doubt picture businessmen with their cinq-à-septs or, perhaps, company a little more transactional than that. Banish such grubby thoughts from your minds; having the option of booking a bedroom for three hours is a great and practical idea.

It is no coincidence that several of the establishments that have signed up with ByHours are close to airports and train stations. How often have you had several hours to kill at an airport and longed for a place to shower and snooze? And Gulliver has written before about that horrible dead time when, having checked out of a hotel in the morning, with your flight not until late in the evening, you have ages to kill wandering around a strange town dragging a wheely-bag. Then there are those day trips when you fly in to town at some ungodly early hour and are scheduled to fly out at an equally uncivilised late one; how much more pleasant if you could pop your head down for a few hours in the afternoon? In fact you needn’t even be a visitor. Back when Gulliver’s daughter was a sleep-averse baby, he would have paid handsomely for the chance to close his eyes for an hour in a short-stay hotel during his lunch break.

It is also easy to see why it would appeal to hotels, which could sweat their assets more, filling gaps between guests checking out and in. According to Travelmole, in Spain last year more than 150,000 bookings were made through ByHours at more than 1,500 hotels. However, for the consumer the big drawback would appear to be pricing. Prices for a three-hour stay in London tomorrow start at €50 and quickly hit the hundreds. That is understandable. By its nature it is often likely to be a last-minute purchase, and hotels will obviously price very short reservations at a premium. But the more hotels that sign up, the easier it will be to find something more budget friendly.

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2015/04/renting-hotel-rooms-hour