STOCKHOLM (AP) - Best known for its budget
flat-pack furniture, Scandinavian retailer Ikea is planning to launch a
chain of budget hotels in Europe.
The property division of
Inter Ikea - the company that owns the Ikea intellectual property rights
- is planning hotels in 100 locations across Europe. The first two
hotels are expected to open in Germany in 2014. Other locations
earmarked for hotels include Belgium, the Netherlands, the Nordic
countries, Britain and Poland.
"We're aiming to spread all
over Europe," said Harald Muller, a Brussels-based business development
manager of Inter Ikea's property division.
Although the chain won't
use Ikea's name or furniture, it will engrain the Ikea philosophy of
"good quality at a reasonable price," he said.
"Aside from that, guests
won't really recognize Ikea in it at all," he told The Associated Press,
but added the hotels will have a Scandinavian "feel" because the
interior will be made by Nordic designers.
Inter Ikea, which already
owns a handful of hotels in Europe since the start-up of the property
division in the 1990s, will work with another company to operate the
chain. Muller declined to reveal the name of the hotel chain, but it is
expected to be released in an official announcement in September.
Ikea, the world's largest
furniture retailer, employs 131,000 people in 41 countries and its 287
stores drew in 655 million customers in 2011. It has a complex corporate
structure where the ownership of Ikea's outlets is separated from the
ownership of its brand name and intellectual property rights.
The company has branched
out from its traditional role of furniture store before. In the late
1990s, its retail store arm formed a joint venture, BoKlok, together
with Swedish construction group Skanska AB to build affordable flat-pack
housing.
Earlier this year, the Ikea
Group announced a collaboration deal with Chinese consumer electronics
firm TCL under which it would start selling TV's and sound systems
integrated into Ikea furniture.
