Out with Standard and Deluxe hotel rooms, in with Shoebox, Broom Cupboard, and Extreme Wow

HONG KONG — Guests booking a room at recently opened and much anticipated hotel, The Pig at Harlyn Bay, Cornwall, southwest England, can opt for a Comfy, a Comfy Luxe, a Big Comfy Luxe or an Even Bigger Comfy Luxe.

And those checking into the Naumi Studio Wellington, New Zealand, which opens in October, have the option of Zing or Zest.

Hotel accommodation has long been classified along the lines of Classic, Superior and Deluxe. But then came W, with its hotels that felt more like nightclubs and rooms exuberantly labelled Wonderful, Fabulous, Marvelous and Spectacular.

And that was even before you got to the suites, which are Fantastic, Wow and Extreme Wow.

In W’s wake came a different breed of hotels, with room category names that are refreshingly straightforward, and in some cases, amusing.

The owners of The Pig, Mr Robin Hutson and Mr David Elton, previously opened Lime Wood, in the New Forest on England’s south coast, as a contemporary take on country house hotels.

Out went the chintz and the fine dining, in came comfortably chic interiors and a relaxed restaurant focused on superb produce. They also changed the approach to room categories, naming them Cosy, Spacious and Generous.

“We wanted to deformalise the country-house hotel experience by making it inviting, approachable and warm,” says Mr Hutson, chief executive officer and chairman of Lime Wood and The Pig hotels.

“Our room names say it like it is, they describe exactly what you are getting when you walk in.”

Mr Hutson and Mr Elton carried the names overs to “The Pigs” — a small chain they have launched across southern England. The entry point category of guestrooms is named Snug, although, at The Pig on the Beach in Dorset, it’s a Cheap and Cheerful.

Soho House founder Nick Jones came up with his name categories when clubhouses with bedrooms (available to non-members) opened across Europe, the United States and Asia.

Mr Jones threw out the rule book on names just as he had changed the concept of private member clubs from stuffy to creative.

The does-what-it-says-on-the-tin approach at Soho Houses spans room categories from Tiny and Small to Medium and Large — and in the case of his properties in Mumbai and Istanbul, Playrooms — the largest category, with “space for entertainment”.

There was a time when hoteliers would avoid drawing attention to the diminutive proportions of a room; these days, the lack of size is positively celebrated. While Snug and Cosy could be seen as euphemisms for “small”, other hoteliers go further and use more definitive terms.

The Pig hotels at Harlyn Bay and Bridge Place, Kent offer an Extremely Small Room, while at Dean Street Townhouse, in London, there’s a Broom Cupboard (three categories below its Small category, at 15 square metres).

And at urban boutique hotel chain The Hoxton, which has properties in Europe and the United States, you’ll find a room category called Shoebox (12 square metres).

“Transparency has always been important to The Hoxton,” says public relations manager Alice Tate.

“Our Shoebox rooms are small, we know that; we called them Shoeboxes so people know what they’re getting. We strive to be brutally honest with all of our room descriptions.”

The chain, which was launched by a co-founder of the Pret a Manger sandwich shop chain, Mr Sinclair Beecham, introduced a practical and cheap but still chic approach to city hotels — in the words of Beecham, “a no bulls**t hotel”.

Bedroom categories started out as Snug, Cosy and Roomy, with the introduction of Biggy when the Paris property opened. As current owner Sharan Pasricha has said: “We don’t overcomplicate or overpromise.”

Others have taken a more esoteric approach. As well as Mini, Modern and Max options, Hotel Max, in Seattle, has Sub Pop rooms, each with a door adorned with a hero of the city’s grunge music scene, many of whom recorded for the Sub Pop record label.

Naumi, the self-identified antithesis of cookie cutter, calls the entry-level rooms at its boutique hotels in Singapore and Auckland and Queenstown, New Zealand, Habitat. The next room size up is Oasis. ​

“Naumi has always aspired to be anything but ordinary, and that makes it right down to our room names,” says a spokeswoman. “We wanted to inject the warmth, joie de vivre and cheekiness of the brand into our room types while also giving them a homely and welcoming name.”

In Sydney, the equivalent rooms are called more cryptically Zing and Zest. “Our Sydney property will be renovated in 2021 and these names are a sneak peek of the developments to come,” says the spokeswoman.

The Naumi Studio in Wellington will also feature Zing and Zest rooms — names which, the spokeswoman says, will be an accurate reflection of their design.

Most intriguing is the newest accommodation at Soho Farmhouse, in the Cotswolds in the English Midlands: Piglets, “our smallest rooms, all the essentials without the extra clutter”.

They were intended to be called Pigsties, due to their curved-roofed hut design, but Soho House decided that was going too far. SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST