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British easyGroup has set its sights on one of the missing links in its travel/entertainment empire: accommodation. Welcome to easyDorm! After turning various industries upside down by launching the likes of easyJet, easyCar, and easyCinema, British easyGroup has now set its sights on one of the missing links in its travel/entertainment empire: accommodation. After all, if it’s price-elastic, the easyGroup will go for it! Soon, after boarding orange easyJet planes, picking up an easyCar at the airport, and watching a movie in an easyCinema, consumers can get a good night’s sleep in an easyDorm, all for next to nothing if booked well in advance. Starting in London next year (New York and Paris could be next, source: USA Today), easyDorm will concentrate on providing accommodation only, and will not offer a restaurant or other services. Bedding and toiletries will be available for purchase for those customers who don’t bring their own. Rooms will consist of pre-fabricated fibreglass units (nothing to break, no dirt accumulation), and come with a shower unit, a lavatory and floor mattresses inspired by Japanese tatami style bedding. An extra charge applies for those who choose not to clean their own room.

Opportunities

It will be highly interesting to see whether easyDorm can compete with more than just youth hostels and backpacker joints. It’s entering a growing market though: there are around 60,000 rooms in the UK in budget hotels today, from less than 8,000 in 1992. And changing travel and tourism patterns (not in the last place fuelled by sibling easyJet), with tourists going on short breaks non-stop and year-round, wanting to spend a minimum on transport and accommodation, and a maximum on experience, shouldn’t hurt either. Living in Paris, London, New York, Cape Town, LA or any other world city and want to get involved? On its website, the easyGroup invites anyone interested in participation to email them, so here goes: James Rothnie at james.rothnie@easyGroup.co.uk. (Note: while we’d think easyDorm alone is a sizeable endeavor to pull off, the easyGroup is already planning easyPizza, easyBus and easyCruise. Springwise will track all of these new business ideas, and would like to thank easyGroup for the steady flow of inspiration;-)