The latest addition to the Roatel hotel chain in Germany was opened this week in the service park of GVZ Entwicklungsgesellschaft Bremen mbH. The location is in the middle of a logistics area between the Amazon warehouse and the DPD hub.
The basic module of a Roatel accommodation is a micro-hotel with four single rooms built into a 45ft sea freight container.
Rooms 30% bigger than the cab but with more facilities
According to the company’s description, the container is thermally insulated and soundproofed, and air conditioning is provided for individual heating or cooling. Also, a window is built in each room.
The area of each room is 7.5 square meters and the inner height of the containers is 2.50 m, which makes the rooms only 30% larger than the average cab size.
The rooms are equipped with a 90 x 200 cm bed, a toilet, a shower, a bench with a table, a shelf, a wardrobe and electric window blinds. WiFi and satellite TV with many international channels on a large screen is available free of charge and unlimited.
While the sanitary facilities make a huge difference for drivers, one might ask that apart from that, what’s the point in paying for such a small room and leaving the lorry outside, unattended?
According to the booking platform of Roatel, one room costs 49 euros for a night.
The business idea came from two entrepreneurs from Dusseldorf who are planning to build 600 more sites in the next three or four years. So far, apart from the latest addition to the chain, the start-up has opened such accommodation in Loningen, Lower Saxony and in Schopfsdorf, Saxony-Anhalt.