Swedish furniture giant Ikea has opened a temporary hotel at a rest stop on one of France’s busiest motorways offering free rooms for 20-minute naps. The goal is to help drivers who have become sleepy at at the wheel, as well as selling a mattress or two.

"/> Swedish furniture giant Ikea has opened a temporary hotel at a rest stop on one of France’s busiest motorways offering free rooms for 20-minute naps. The goal is to help drivers who have become sleepy at at the wheel, as well as selling a mattress or two.

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HOLIDAY

Ikea opens free hotel for sleepy drivers

Swedish furniture giant Ikea has opened a temporary hotel at a rest stop on one of France’s busiest motorways offering free rooms for 20-minute naps. The goal is to help drivers who have become sleepy at at the wheel, as well as selling a mattress or two.

Ikea opens free hotel for sleepy drivers
Katy Warner

The hotel, which opened on Wednesday and will stay open 24/7 until July 31st, features 28 soundproofed, air-conditioned rooms measuring four square metres. Each comes with a rug, a mirror, a night table and a bed with an Ikea mattress, which has a price tag affixed to it just in case the guests like what they’ve dozed on.

While marketing might play a role, the main idea is to fight “fatigue at the wheel”, said Ikea and motorway operator APRR.

Ikea has set up the temporary hotel on the A6 motorway near the city of Beaune at one of Europe’s largest rest areas. The store expects some 10,000 naps in total during the hotel’s two-and-a half week existence, Ikea spokesperson Stéphanie Jourdain told AFP.

She declined to reveal the cost of the operation, with is being paid for entirely by the Swedish chain.

While parents take their short snooze, their kids can spend the time in a play area that can accommodate up to 32 children and has five supervisors on duty.

The rooms are cleaned after every nap and the sheets and pillow cases are donated to the housing charity Les toits du coeur.

One of the rooms has been dedicated to displaying a selection of the mattresses Ikea has on offer.

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WEATHER

Danish Ikea store shelters staff and customers overnight during snowstorm

Heavy snowfall left 31 people looking for a spare cushion at the Aalborg branch of Ikea on Wednesday as they were forced to spend the night at the store.

A file photo at Ikea in Aalborg, where 31 people stayed overnight during a snowstorm on December 1st 2021.
A file photo at Ikea in Aalborg, where 31 people stayed overnight during a snowstorm on December 1st 2021. Photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

Anyone who has found themselves wandering the mazy aisles of an Ikea might be able to empathise with the sense of being lost in the furniture store for a seemingly indefinite time.

Such a feeling was probably more real than usual for six customers and 25 staff members who were forced to spend the night at the furniture giant’s Aalborg branch after being snowed in.

Heavy snow in North Jutland brought traffic to a standstill and halted public transport in parts of the region on Wednesday afternoon, resulting in a snow-in at Ikea.

“This is certainly a new situation for us,” Ikea Aalborg store manager Peter Elmose told local media Nordjyske, which first reported the story.

“It’s certainly not how I thought my day would end when I drove to work this morning,” Elmose added.

The 31 people gathered in the store’s restaurant area and planned to see Christmas television and football to pass the evening, the store’s manager reported to Nordjyske.

“Our kitchen staff have made sure there is hot chocolate, risalamande, pastries, soft drinks, coffee and the odd beer for us in light of the occasion. So we’ll be able to keep warm,” he said.

“We couldn’t just send them outside and lock the door behind them at our 8pm closing time. Absolutely not. So of course they’ll be staying here,” he added.

The temporary guests were given lodging in different departments of the store in view of the Covid-19 situation, Nordjyske writes.

“For us , the most important thing was to take care of each other and that everyone feels safe,” Elmose said.

At least Ikea’s stranded customers and staff had somewhere comfortable to lay their heads.

The same can unlikely be said for around 300 passengers at the city’s airport who had to stay overnight at the terminal.

The airport was forced to stop flights from 2:30pm yesterday amid worsening weather, which also prevented buses from transferring passengers to hotels.

“We have around 300 people in the terminal right now and have been giving out blankets on the assumption they will be staying here tonight,” Aalborg Airport operations manager Kim Bermann told Nordjyske.

READ ALSO: Ikea reopens in Denmark after country’s worst retail month this century

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