Interview: CitizenM Hotels Co-Founder on Making a Stay an Extension of Guests’ Lifestyles
Photo Credit: Michael Levie, co-founder and COO of citizenM. Skift / Dan Peltier
Skift Take
citizenM gives its guests more for less while "only selling a night of sleep" in an understated fashion, as co-founder Michael Levie put it. Its model can be illuminating for big and small hotels alike in understanding what happens when data and technology are used to their potentials.
Walk into any citizenM hotel and you'll feel like you're in a living room rather than a hotel lobby. Kiosks replace front desks and bookshelves, fireplaces and large plasma TVs are positioned to get guests out of their rooms and into the common areas citizenM calls "living spaces."
These features are typical of a boutique or lifestyle hotel but the way citizenM uses technology in these spaces creates an experience that's difficult to find elsewhere. Founded in 2005, CitizenM has seven properties in the U.K., Paris, Amsterdam and New York City, with 17 more hotels in the pipeline.
Michael Levie, co-founder and COO of citizenM, said he founded the hotel to give a niche market what it needs. That niche is travelers who are "mobile citizens," those who are seemingly always on the road and using mobile technology. Tablets in guest rooms, for example, let guests control TVs, lighting and music and surf the Web.
Levie said he uses an analogy about Tesla Motors to draw parallels to ho
