Jucy hotels coming to Australia
New Zealand tourism business Jucy is about to introduce pod-style hotels to Australia.
The hotels are basically made up of hundreds of fibreglass and steel bed capsules. These are stacked bunk-style eight to a room. There’s a communal bathroom and kitchen/lounge areas. They also offer compact en-suite rooms.
Jucy is now rolling them out in New Zealand. A Jucy Snooze hotel will open at Christchurch Airport in November, followed by one in Queenstown July 2017. Another in Auckland is now on the drawing board.
Pitched at the rental vehicle customers, the pods cost $35-$45 per night. They can also be rented per hour.
The hotels are being built by the company’s Auckland manufacturing division, Jucy By Design, which also produces distinctive green and purple campervans.
They have already trialled the concept in China and Japan.
The company was founded in 2001 by brothers Tim and Dan Alpe. They initially set it up as a campervan company with its brand led by the 1950's pin up girl Lucy. It started out with 35 vehicles. It now has 3,500 and has grown to a sizeable company by New Zealand standards.
Apart from pod hotels and campervans, the companies also offers rental cars, a cruise boat at Milford Sound, coaches, hotels, and a new tourism app, Skoot, developed with Tourism Radio and Spark's app company Putti.
It’s also serious about expanding into Australia.
The brothers have just opened their seventh office in Australia on the Gold Coast. And 18 months ago, they added rental cars to the Australian business 18 months ago and it now offers 700 vehicles.
The Alpes are also looking at expanding on the US's west Coast where they already have 350 rental vehicles and offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Funded by shareholders, the two Alpe brothers own 35 per cent each and their father 30 per cent.
Leon Gettler, May 17th 2016
